Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

A Domain Independent Framework for Developing Knowledge Based Computer Generated Forces

Computer Generated Forces (CGFs) are important players in Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) exercises. A problem with CGFs is that they do not exhibit sufficient human behaviors to make their use effective. The SOAR approach has yielded a human cognitive model that can be applied to CGFs, but this is extremely complex. The product of the research reported in this thesis is a much less complex behavioral framework for a CGF that is easy to validate, revise, and maintain. To support this, an existing, domain independent CGF architecture is discussed and applied to an experimental CGF. Techniques for modeling the knowledge and behaviors of any CGF via semantic nets are presented. A process for transforming the semantic nets into fuzzy controllers is outlined, and pertinent issues regarding fuzzy controllers are discussed. Lastly, a method for making time critical decisions via fuzzy logic is presented

Distributed Control for Collective Behaviour in Micro-unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Full version unavailable due to 3rd party copyright restrictions.The work presented herein focuses on the design of distributed autonomous controllers for collective behaviour of Micro-unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MAVs). Two alternative approaches to this topic are introduced: one based upon the Evolutionary Robotics (ER) paradigm, the other one upon flocking principles. Three computer simulators have been developed in order to carry out the required experiments, all of them having their focus on the modelling of fixed-wing aircraft flight dynamics. The employment of fixed-wing aircraft rather than the omni-directional robots typically employed in collective robotics significantly increases the complexity of the challenges that an autonomous controller has to face. This is mostly due to the strict motion constraints associated with fixed-wing platforms, that require a high degree of accuracy by the controller. Concerning the ER approach, the experimental setups elaborated have resulted in controllers that have been evolved in simulation with the following capabilities: (1) navigation across unknown environments, (2) obstacle avoidance, (3) tracking of a moving target, and (4) execution of cooperative and coordinated behaviours based on implicit communication strategies. The design methodology based upon flocking principles has involved tests on computer simulations and subsequent experimentation on real-world robotic platforms. A customised implementation of Reynolds’ flocking algorithm has been developed and successfully validated through flight tests performed with the swinglet MAV. It has been notably demonstrated how the Evolutionary Robotics approach could be successfully extended to the domain of fixed-wing aerial robotics, which has never received a great deal of attention in the past. The investigations performed have also shown that complex and real physics-based computer simulators are not a compulsory requirement when approaching the domain of aerial robotics, as long as proper autopilot systems (taking care of the ”reality gap” issue) are used on the real robots.EOARD (European Office of Aerospace Research & Development), euCognitio

NASA Automated Rendezvous and Capture Review. A compilation of the abstracts

This document presents a compilation of abstracts of papers solicited for presentation at the NASA Automated Rendezvous and Capture Review held in Williamsburg, VA on November 19-21, 1991. Due to limitations on time and other considerations, not all abstracts could be presented during the review. The organizing committee determined however, that all abstracts merited availability to all participants and represented data and information reflecting state-of-the-art of this technology which should be captured in one document for future use and reference. The organizing committee appreciates the interest shown in the review and the response by the authors in submitting these abstracts

Computational intelligence approaches to robotics, automation, and control [Volume guest editors]

No abstract available

Communication and Control in Collaborative UAVs: Recent Advances and Future Trends

The recent progress in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) technology has significantly advanced UAV-based applications for military, civil, and commercial domains. Nevertheless, the challenges of establishing high-speed communication links, flexible control strategies, and developing efficient collaborative decision-making algorithms for a swarm of UAVs limit their autonomy, robustness, and reliability. Thus, a growing focus has been witnessed on collaborative communication to allow a swarm of UAVs to coordinate and communicate autonomously for the cooperative completion of tasks in a short time with improved efficiency and reliability. This work presents a comprehensive review of collaborative communication in a multi-UAV system. We thoroughly discuss the characteristics of intelligent UAVs and their communication and control requirements for autonomous collaboration and coordination. Moreover, we review various UAV collaboration tasks, summarize the applications of UAV swarm networks for dense urban environments and present the use case scenarios to highlight the current developments of UAV-based applications in various domains. Finally, we identify several exciting future research direction that needs attention for advancing the research in collaborative UAVs

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 1997

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology\u27s Graduate School of Engineering and the Graduate School of Logistics and Acquisition Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; list student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedure for contacting either school

Autonomous Approach and Landing Algorithms for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

In recent years, several research activities have been developed in order to increase the autonomy features in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), to substitute human pilots in dangerous missions or simply in order to execute specific tasks more efficiently and cheaply. In particular, a significant research effort has been devoted to achieve high automation in the landing phase, so as to allow the landing of an aircraft without human intervention, also in presence of severe environmental disturbances. The worldwide research community agrees with the opportunity of the dual use of UAVs (for both military and civil purposes), for this reason it is very important to make the UAVs and their autolanding systems compliant with the actual and future rules and with the procedures regarding autonomous flight in ATM (Air Traffic Management) airspace in addition to the typical military aims of minimizing fuel, space or other important parameters during each autonomous task. Developing autolanding systems with a desired level of reliability, accuracy and safety involves an evolution of all the subsystems related to the guide, navigation and control disciplines. The main drawbacks of the autolanding systems available at the state of art concern or the lack of adaptivity of the trajectory generation and tracking to unpredicted external events, such as varied environmental condition and unexpected threats to avoid, or the missed compliance with the guide lines imposed by certification authorities of the proposed technologies used to get the desired above mentioned adaptivity. During his PhD period the author contributed to the development of an autonomous approach and landing system considering all the indispensable functionalities like: mission automation logic, runway data managing, sensor fusion for optimal estimation of vehicle state, trajectory generation and tracking considering optimality criteria, health management algorithms. In particular the system addressed in this thesis is capable to perform a fully adaptive autonomous landing starting from any point of the three dimensional space. The main novel feature of this algorithm is that it generates on line, with a desired updating rate or at a specified event, the nominal trajectory for the aircraft, based on the actual state of the vehicle and on the desired state at touch down point. Main features of the autolanding system based on the implementation of the proposed algorithm are: on line trajectory re-planning in the landing phase, fully autonomy from remote pilot inputs, weakly instrumented landing runway (without ILS availability), ability to land starting from any point in the space and autonomous management of failures and/or adverse atmospheric conditions, decision-making logic evaluation for key-decisions regarding possible execution of altitude recovery manoeuvre based on the Differential GPS integrity signal and compatible with the functionalities made available by the future GNSS system. All the algorithms developed allow reducing computational tractability of trajectory generation and tracking problems so as to be suitable for real time implementation and to still obtain a feasible (for the vehicle) robust and adaptive trajectory for the UAV. All the activities related to the current study have been conducted at CIRA (Italian Aerospace Research Center) in the framework of the aeronautical TECVOL project whose aim is to develop innovative technologies for the autonomous flight. The autolanding system was developed by the TECVOL team and the author’s contribution to it will be outlined in the thesis. Effectiveness of proposed algorithms has been then evaluated in real flight experiments, using the aeronautical flying demonstrator available at CIRA

Air Force Institute of Technology Research Report 2006

This report summarizes the research activities of the Air Force Institute of Technology’s Graduate School of Engineering and Management. It describes research interests and faculty expertise; lists student theses/dissertations; identifies research sponsors and contributions; and outlines the procedures for contacting the school. Included in the report are: faculty publications, conference presentations, consultations, and funded research projects. Research was conducted in the areas of Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Electro-Optics, Computer Engineering and Computer Science, Systems and Engineering Management, Operational Sciences, Mathematics, Statistics and Engineering Physics