Small unmanned airborne systems to support oil and gas pipeline monitoring and mapping

Acknowledgments We thank Johan Havelaar, Aeryon Labs Inc., AeronVironment Inc. and Aeronautics Inc. for kindly permitting the use of materials in Fig. 1.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Architecture and Information Requirements to Assess and Predict Flight Safety Risks During Highly Autonomous Urban Flight Operations

As aviation adopts new and increasingly complex operational paradigms, vehicle types, and technologies to broaden airspace capability and efficiency, maintaining a safe system will require recognition and timely mitigation of new safety issues as they emerge and before significant consequences occur. A shift toward a more predictive risk mitigation capability becomes critical to meet this challenge. In-time safety assurance comprises monitoring, assessment, and mitigation functions that proactively reduce risk in complex operational environments where the interplay of hazards may not be known (and therefore not accounted for) during design. These functions can also help to understand and predict emergent effects caused by the increased use of automation or autonomous functions that may exhibit unexpected non-deterministic behaviors. The envisioned monitoring and assessment functions can look for precursors, anomalies, and trends (PATs) by applying model-based and data-driven methods. Outputs would then drive downstream mitigation(s) if needed to reduce risk. These mitigations may be accomplished using traditional design revision processes or via operational (and sometimes automated) mechanisms. The latter refers to the in-time aspect of the system concept. This report comprises architecture and information requirements and considerations toward enabling such a capability within the domain of low altitude highly autonomous urban flight operations. This domain may span, for example, public-use surveillance missions flown by small unmanned aircraft (e.g., infrastructure inspection, facility management, emergency response, law enforcement, and/or security) to transportation missions flown by larger aircraft that may carry passengers or deliver products. Caveat: Any stated requirements in this report should be considered initial requirements that are intended to drive research and development (R&D). These initial requirements are likely to evolve based on R&D findings, refinement of operational concepts, industry advances, and new industry or regulatory policies or standards related to safety assurance

Mosaic Warfare: from philosophy to model to solutions

The paper relates to advanced management of large distributed dynamic systems in unpredictable and crisis situations. It briefs the newest DARPA Mosaic Warfare concept oriented on rapidly composable networks of low-cost sensors, multi-domain command and control nodes, and cooperative manned and unmanned systems, with runtime integration of scattered resources which should operate together as one holistic system. It may have the highest value for solving complex national and international defense and security problems for which scattered throughout the world mosaic resources should be quickly integrated to collectively fight disaster and crisis situations, with separate nations unable of doing this individually. The paper shows how distributed mosaic systems can be modeled under the developed Spatial Grasp Technology (SGT) using active distributed knowledge networks, with solving such exemplary problems on them as runtime collection of scattered resources into integral forces operating under unified control, and grouping of certain distributed resources for the surrounding and collective elimination of unwanted phenomena.Стаття присвячена розширеному управлінню великими розподіленими динамічними системами в непередбачуваних і кризових ситуаціях. Викладено новітню концепцію Агентства оборонних проектів (DARPA) Мозаїчні війни, орієнтовану на швидко компоновану мережу сенсорів, багатодоменних вузлів управління, а також спільні пілотовані і безпілотні системи з інтеграцією розкиданих ресурсів, які повинні працювати разом як єдина система. Це може мати особливе значення для вирішення складних національних і міжнародних проблем оборони і безпеки, де розкидані по всьому світу мозаїчні ресурси повинні швидко об’єднуватися для колективної боротьби з лихами і кризами, оскільки окремі країни не в змозі здійснювати це самостійно. Показано, як розподілені мозаїчні системи можна моделювати за допомогою розробленої Технології просторового захоплення (ТПЗ), яка використовує активні розподілені мережі знань, вирішуючи такі проблеми, як збір і інтеграція в реальному часі поширених ресурсів під єдиним управлінням і групування таких ресурсів для колективної ліквідації небажаних явищ.Статья посвящена расширенному управлению большими распределенными динамическими системами в непредсказуемых и кризисных ситуациях. Изложена новейшая концепция Агентства оборонных проектов (DARPA) Мозаичные войны, ориентированная на быстро компонуемые сети сенсоров, многодоменных узлов управления, а также совместные пилотируемые и беспилотные системы с интеграцией разбросанных ресурсов, которые должны работать вместе как единая система. Это может иметь особое значение для решения сложных национальных и международных проблем обороны и безопасности, где разбросанные по всему миру мозаичные ресурсы должны быстро объединяться для коллективной борьбы с бедствиями и кризисами, поскольку отдельные страны не в состоянии осуществлять это самостоятельно. Показано, как распределенные мозаичные системы можно моделировать с помощью разработанной Технологии пространственного захвата (ТПЗ), использующей активные распределенные сети знаний, решая такие проблемы, как сбор и интеграция в реальном времени распространенных ресурсов под единым управлением и группирование таких ресурсов для коллективной ликвидации нежелательных явлений

How much does a man cost? A dirty, dull, and dangerous application

Thesis (M.A.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2017This study illuminates the many abilities of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). One area of importance includes the UAV's capability to assist in the development, implementation, and execution of crisis management. This research focuses on UAV uses in pre and post crisis planning and accomplishments. The accompaniment of unmanned vehicles with base teams can make crisis management plans more reliable for the general public and teams faced with tasks such as search and rescue and firefighting. In the fight for mass acceptance of UAV integration, knowledge and attitude inventories were collected and analyzed. Methodology includes mixed method research collected by interviews and questionnaires available to experts and ground teams in the UAV fields, mining industry, firefighting and police force career field, and general city planning crisis management members. This information was compiled to assist professionals in creation of general guidelines and recommendations for how to utilize UAVs in crisis management planning and implementation as well as integration of UAVs into the educational system. The results from this study show the benefits and disadvantages of strategically giving UAVs a role in the construction and implementation of crisis management plans and other areas of interest. The results also show that the general public is lacking information and education on the abilities of UAVs. This education gap shows a correlation with negative attitudes towards UAVs. Educational programs to teach the public benefits of UAV integration should be implemented

An Integrated Framework for Sensing Radio Frequency Spectrum Attacks on Medical Delivery Drones

Drone susceptibility to jamming or spoofing attacks of GPS, RF, Wi-Fi, and operator signals presents a danger to future medical delivery systems. A detection framework capable of sensing attacks on drones could provide the capability for active responses. The identification of interference attacks has applicability in medical delivery, disaster zone relief, and FAA enforcement against illegal jamming activities. A gap exists in the literature for solo or swarm-based drones to identify radio frequency spectrum attacks. Any non-delivery specific function, such as attack sensing, added to a drone involves a weight increase and additional complexity; therefore, the value must exceed the disadvantages. Medical delivery, high-value cargo, and disaster zone applications could present a value proposition which overcomes the additional costs. The paper examines types of attacks against drones and describes a framework for designing an attack detection system with active response capabilities for improving the reliability of delivery and other medical applications.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figures, 5 table

Interpreting Potential Groundwater Policies through Modeling of Market and Non-Market Benefits and Costs

Current policies leveraging financial incentives and improved irrigation efficiency to mitigate groundwater scarcity have not proven to curtail trends of resource depletion. Groundwater benefits cannot be appropriately valued solely on market forces, and so deeper policy consideration is warranted under a framework that considers the importance of groundwater across all its values to society. Understanding time preferences for groundwater management and preferences for alternative policies is vital to inform efficient policies. Furthermore, climate change remains politically controversial yet has important consequences for critical groundwater resources and their sustainable long-term management. Proliferating policy narratives concerning climate change could influence the way people think about managing groundwater resources. I present three empirical studies that address these issues. Chapter I examines irrigation efficiency technologies for improved outcomes using a market-based, spatially-dynamic optimization model to test the limitations of improvements alone and in tandem with typical environmental policy mechanisms. Improved efficiency induces some producers to plant more of water-intensive crops such as rice, and best-case improvements fail to counter trends of groundwater depletion over a 30-year horizon. Chapter II elicits public willingness to pay (WTP) for long-term groundwater management and for market and non-market groundwater services. I employ time-discounted choice models to endogenously estimate time preferences under different forms of discounting. This is the first non-market valuation to estimate heterogeneity in time preferences using flexible mixing distributions. I find significant WTP for water quality provision, buffer against long-term drought, jobs from agriculture, and provision of wildlife habitat that promotes fishing and duck hunting, while most people display evidence of hyperbolic or quasi-hyperbolic discounting. Individual parameter distributions for WTP and time preferences are not normally distributed. Chapter III continues the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) tradition to test for systematic influences of narrative frames about climate change on elicited groundwater and policy preferences. In a Choice Experiment (CE), some respondents were exposed to a structuralist, culturally-biased narrative frame about climate change and groundwater resources. Using theories about cultural risk perception and motivated reasoning for systematic evaluation, I find evidence for a cultural incongruency effect but no evidence for a congruency effect. This suggests that people could respond more strongly to incongruence than to congruence in the case of groundwater policy preferences