A feasibility study: Forest Fire Advanced System Technology (FFAST)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service completed a feasibility study that examined the potential uses of advanced technology in forest fires mapping and detection. The current and future (1990's) information needs in forest fire management were determined through interviews. Analysis shows that integrated information gathering and processing is needed. The emerging technologies that were surveyed and identified as possible candidates for use in an end to end system include ""push broom'' sensor arrays, automatic georeferencing, satellite communication links, near real or real time image processing, and data integration. Matching the user requirements and the technologies yielded a ""strawman'' system configuration. The feasibility study recommends and outlines the implementation of the next phase for this project, a two year, conceptual design phase to define a system that warrants continued development

Aerial Networking for the Implementation of Cooperative Control on Small Unmanned Aerial Systems

The employment of Small Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) for reconnaissance and surveillance missions is a vital capability of the United States military. Cooperative control algorithms for SUAS can enable tactical multi-vehicle configurations for communications extension, intelligent navigation, and a multitude of other applications. Past research at AFIT has designed and simulated a cooperative rover-relay algorithm for extended communications and has investigated its implementation through various modem configurations. This research explores aerial networking options for implementing cooperative control and applies them to an actual SUAS. Using Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware, a system was designed and flight tested to implement the rover-relay algorithm and provide a testbed system for future research in cooperative control. Two different modem configurations were designed and tested. The first modem configuration was demonstrated through a series of ground and flight tests to successfully relay autopilot commands and telemetry between a ground station and a rover aircraft through a relay aircraft. This configuration effectively doubles the effective range of the rover system to 1.2 miles, together with an algorithm that autonomously navigates the relay aircraft to an optimal location. Secondly, a mesh network was configured and tested. This configuration successfully relayed aircraft telemetry to the ground station from each vehicle in the network. However, the network suffered from low throughput, which limited autopilot functionality, such as updating navigation waypoints to each aircraft. The results suggest the system be updated with more capable modems in a mesh configuration to broaden the possibilities for future research in cooperative applications