969 research outputs found
Autonomous Capabilities for Small Unmanned Aerial Systems Conducting Radiological Response: Findings from a High-fidelity Discovery Experiment
This article presents a preliminary work domain theory and identifies autonomous vehicle, navigational, and mission capabilities and challenges for small unmanned aerial systems (SUASs) responding to a radiological disaster. Radiological events are representative of applications that involve flying at low altitudes and close proximities to structures. To more formally understand the guidance and control demands, the environment in which the SUAS has to function, and the expected missions, tasks, and strategies to respond to an incident, a discovery experiment was performed in 2013. The experiment placed a radiological source emitting at 10 times background radiation in the simulated collapse of a multistory hospital. Two SUASs, an AirRobot 100B and a Leptron Avenger, were inserted with subject matter experts into the response, providing high operational fidelity. The SUASs were expected by the responders to fly at altitudes between 0.3 and 30 m, and hover at 1.5 m from urban structures. The proximity to a building introduced a decrease in GPS satellite coverage, challenging existing vehicle autonomy. Five new navigational capabilities were identified: scan, obstacle avoidance, contour following, environment-aware return to home, andreturn to highest reading. Furthermore, the data-to-decision process could be improved with autonomous data digestion and visualization capabilities. This article is expected to contribute to a better understanding of autonomy in a SUAS, serve as a requirement document for advanced autonomy, and illustrate how discovery experimentation serves as a design tool for autonomous vehicles
An OpenEaagles Framework Extension for Hardware-in-the-Loop Swarm Simulation
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) swarm applications, algorithms, and control strategies have experienced steady growth and development over the past 15 years. Yet, to this day, most swarm development efforts have gone untested and thus unimplemented. Cost of aircraft systems, government imposed airspace restrictions, and the lack of adequate modeling and simulation tools are some of the major inhibitors to successful swarm implementation. This thesis examines how the OpenEaagles simulation framework can be extended to bridge this gap. This research aims to utilize Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation to provide developers a functional capability to develop and test the behaviors of scalable and modular swarms of autonomous UAVs in simulation with high confidence that these behaviors will prop- agate to real/live ight tests. Demonstrations show the framework enhances and simplifies swarm development through encapsulation, possesses high modularity, pro- vides realistic aircraft modeling, and is capable of simultaneously accommodating four hardware-piloted swarming UAVs during HIL simulation or 64 swarming UAVs during pure simulation
UAV Simulation Environment for Autonomous Flight Control Algorithms
This thesis presents the development of a UAV simulation environment for the design, analysis, and comparison of autonomous flight control laws. The simulation environment was developed in MATLAB/Simulink, with custom map generation software and FlightGear 3-D visualization. Graphical user interface of the simulation environment is user-friendly and all available options are discussed in detail. Aircraft dynamic models are presented, with emphasis on newly designed UAV models. Five different aircraft models are available, with several path planning and trajectory tracking algorithms implemented. Emphasis is given to simulation of failures and other abnormal conditions, so that appropriate tools for failure detection, evaluation, and accommodation can be designed. The development of new path planning methodologies, such as optimized point of interest or automatic landing algorithms, is introduced. New developments in trajectory tracking algorithms, including adaptive controllers are discussed. An example simulation study is presented to investigate obstacle avoidance path planning algorithms, as well as the performance of trajectory tracking algorithms under both nominal and failure conditions. The results of this study are discussed with respect to optimum algorithm choice, as well as the user-friendliness of the UAV simulation environment as a whole. Finally, possible strategies for future improvements and expansion of the UAV simulation environment and its components are introduced
Contributions to deconfliction advanced U-space services for multiple unmanned aerial systems including field tests validation
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) will become commonplace, the number of UAS
flying in European airspace is expected to increase from a few thousand to hundreds
of thousands by 2050. To prepare for this approaching, national and international
organizations involved in aerial traffic management are now developing new laws
and restructuring the airspace to incorporate UAS into civil airspace. The Single
European Sky ATM Research considers the development of the U-space, a crucial
step to enable the safe, secure, and efficient access of a large set of UAS into airspace.
The design, integration, and validation of a set of modules that contribute to our
UTM architecture for advanced U-space services are described in this Thesis. With
an emphasis on conflict detection and resolution features, the architecture is flexible,
modular, and scalable. The UTM is designed to work without the need for human
involvement, to achieve U-space required scalability due to the large number of expected
operations. However, it recommends actions to the UAS operator since, under
current regulations, the operator is accountable for carrying out the recommendations
of the UTM. Moreover, our development is based on the Robot Operating System
(ROS) and is open source.
The main developments of the proposed Thesis are monitoring and tactical deconfliction
services, which are in charge of identifying and resolving possible conflicts
that arise in the shared airspace of several UAS. By limiting the conflict search to a
local search surrounding each waypoint, the proposed conflict detection method aims
to improve conflict detection. By splitting the issue down into smaller subproblems
with only two waypoints, the conflict resolution method tries to decrease the deviation
distance from the initial flight plan. The proposed method for resolving potential threats is based on the premise that
UAS can follow trajectories in time and space properly. Therefore, another contribution
of the presented Thesis is an UAS 4D trajectory follower that can correct space
and temporal deviations while following a given trajectory. Currently, commercial autopilots
do not offer this functionality that allows to improve the airspace occupancy
using time as an additional dimension.
Moreover, the integration of onboard detect and avoid capabilities, as well as the
consequences for U-space services are examined in this Thesis. A module capable
of detecting large static unexpected obstacles and generating an alternative route to
avoid the obstacle online is presented.
Finally, the presented UTM architecture has been tested in both software-in-theloop
and hardware-in-the-loop development enviroments, but also in real scenarios
using unmanned aircraft. These scenarios were designed by selecting the most relevant
UAS operation applications, such as the inspection of wind turbines, power lines
and precision agriculture, as well as event and forest monitoring. ATLAS and El
Arenosillo were the locations of the tests carried out thanks to the European projects
SAFEDRONE and GAUSS.Los sistemas aéreos no tripulados (UAS en inglés) se convertirán en algo habitual. Se prevé que el
número de UAS que vuelen en el espacio aéreo europeo pase de unos pocos miles a cientos de
miles en 2050. Para prepararse para esta aproximación, las organizaciones nacionales e
internacionales dedicadas a la gestión del tráfico aéreo están elaborando nuevas leyes y
reestructurando el espacio aéreo para incorporar los UAS al espacio aéreo civil. SESAR (del inglés
Single European Sky ATM Research) considera el desarrollo de U-space, un paso crucial para
permitir el acceso seguro y eficiente de un gran conjunto de UAS al espacio aéreo.
En esta Tesis se describe el diseño, la integración y la validación de un conjunto de módulos que
contribuyen a nuestra arquitectura UTM (del inglés Unmanned aerial system Traffic Management)
para los servicios avanzados del U-space. Con un énfasis en las características de detección y
resolución de conflictos, la arquitectura es flexible, modular y escalable. La UTM está diseñada para
funcionar sin necesidad de intervención humana, para lograr la escalabilidad requerida por U-space
debido al gran número de operaciones previstas. Sin embargo, la UTM únicamente recomienda
acciones al operador del UAS ya que, según la normativa vigente, el operador es responsable de las
operaciones realizadas. Además, nuestro desarrollo está basado en el Sistema Operativo de Robots
(ROS en inglés) y es de código abierto.
Los principales desarrollos de la presente Tesis son los servicios de monitorización y evitación de
conflictos, que se encargan de identificar y resolver los posibles conflictos que surjan en el espacio
aéreo compartido de varios UAS. Limitando la búsqueda de conflictos a una búsqueda local
alrededor de cada punto de ruta, el método de detección de conflictos pretende mejorar la detección
de conflictos. Al dividir el problema en subproblemas más pequeños con sólo dos puntos de ruta, el
método de resolución de conflictos intenta disminuir la distancia de desviación del plan de vuelo
inicial.
El método de resolución de conflictos propuesto se basa en la premisa de que los UAS pueden
seguir las trayectorias en el tiempo y espacio de forma adecuada. Por tanto, otra de las aportaciones
de la Tesis presentada es un seguidor de trayectorias 4D de UAS que puede corregir las
desviaciones espaciales y temporales mientras sigue una trayectoria determinada. Actualmente, los
autopilotos comerciales no ofrecen esta funcionalidad que permite mejorar la ocupación del espacio
aéreo utilizando el tiempo como una dimensión adicional.
Además, en esta Tesis se examina la capacidad de integración de módulos a bordo de detección y
evitación de obstáculos, así como las consecuencias para los servicios de U-space. Se presenta un
módulo capaz de detectar grandes obstáculos estáticos inesperados y capaz de generar una ruta
alternativa para evitar dicho obstáculo.
Por último, la arquitectura UTM presentada ha sido probada en entornos de desarrollo de simulación,
pero también en escenarios reales con aeronaves no tripuladas. Estos escenarios se diseñaron
seleccionando las aplicaciones de operación de UAS más relevantes, como la inspección de
aerogeneradores, líneas eléctricas y agricultura de precisión, así como la monitorización de eventos y
bosques. ATLAS y El Arenosillo fueron las sedes de las pruebas realizadas gracias a los proyectos
europeos SAFEDRONE y GAUSS
Detecting Invasive Insects with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
A key aspect to controlling and reducing the effects invasive insect species
have on agriculture is to obtain knowledge about the migration patterns of
these species. Current state-of-the-art methods of studying these migration
patterns involve a mark-release-recapture technique, in which insects are
released after being marked and researchers attempt to recapture them later.
However, this approach involves a human researcher manually searching for these
insects in large fields and results in very low recapture rates. In this paper,
we propose an automated system for detecting released insects using an unmanned
aerial vehicle. This system utilizes ultraviolet lighting technology, digital
cameras, and lightweight computer vision algorithms to more quickly and
accurately detect insects compared to the current state of the art. The
efficiency and accuracy that this system provides will allow for a more
comprehensive understanding of invasive insect species migration patterns. Our
experimental results demonstrate that our system can detect real target insects
in field conditions with high precision and recall rates.Comment: IEEE ICRA 2019. 7 page
Air Traffic Control (ATC) Management. 3D Visualization
In this Bachelor Thesis, a software system has been developed for computers, which
aims to renew current air traffic control systems by presenting a better user interface and
show new ways of interaction and flights visualization features.
The application will let users build flights scenarios and also apply advanced settings such
as the speed of each airplane. Once set the scenario, air traffic controllers can visualize and
control the simulation of these flights in 2D and 3D, as well as receive feedback from the
system about future collisions in the next minutes. Ultimately, they will be able to watch the
results of the simulation.En este trabajo final de grado, se ha desarrollado un sistema software para
ordenadores cuyo objetivo es renovar los actuales sistemas de control de tránsito aéreo
mediante la presentación de una mejor interfaz de usuario y mostrar nuevas maneras de
interacción y visualización de los vuelos.
La aplicación permitirá a los usuarios construir escenarios de vuelos y también aplicar
ajustes avanzados como la velocidad de cada avión. Una vez establecido dicho escenario,
los controladores de tráfico aéreo pueden visualizar y controlar la simulación de estos
vuelos en 2D y 3D, así como recibir feedback del sistema sobre futuras colisiones en los
próximos minutos. Finalmente, podrán ver los resultados de la simulación.En aquest treball final de grau, s'ha desenvolupat un sistema software per a
ordinadors amb l'objectiu de renovar els actuals sistemes de control de trànsit aeri
mitjançant la presentació d'una millor interfície d'usuari i mostrar noves maneres d'interacció
i visualització dels vols.
L'aplicació permetrà als usuaris construir escenaris de vols i també aplicar configuracions
avançades com la velocitat de cada avió. Un cop establert l'escenari, els controladors de
trànsit aeri poden visualitzar i controlar la simulació d'aquests vols en 2D i 3D, així com
rebre feedback del sistema sobre futures col·lisions en els propers minuts. Finalment,
podran veure els resultats de la simulació
Quadrotor UAV Interface and Localization Design
Our project\u27s task was to assist Lincoln Laboratory in preparation for the future automation of a quadrotor UAV system. We created an interface between the quadrotor and ROS to allow for computerized-control of the UAV. Tests of our system indicated that our solution could be feasible with further research. In the next phase of the projects, we created a localization system automate take-off and landing in future mission environments by altering the augmented reality library, ARToolKit, to work with ROS. We performed accuracy, range, update rate, lighting, and tag occlusion tests on our modified code to determine its viability in real-world conditions. We concluded that our current system would not be a feasible due to inconsistencies in tag-detection, but that it merits further research
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