A multimodal micro air vehicle for autonomous flight in near-earth environments

Reconnaissance, surveillance, and search-and-rescue missions in near-Earth environments such as caves, forests, and urban areas pose many new challenges to command and control (C2) teams. Of great significance is how to acquire situational awareness when access to the scene is blocked by enemy fire, rubble, or other occlusions. Small bird-sized aerial robots are expendable and can fly over obstacles and through small openings to assist in the acquisition and distribution of intelligence. However, limited flying space and densely populated obstacle fields requires a vehicle that is capable of hovering, but also maneuverable. A secondary flight mode was incorporated into a fixed-wing aircraft to preserve its maneuverability while adding the capability of hovering. An inertial measurement sensor and onboard flight control system were interfaced and used to transition the hybrid prototype from cruise to hover flight and sustain a hover autonomously. Furthermore, the hovering flight mode can be used to maneuver the aircraft through small openings such as doorways. An ultrasonic and infrared sensor suite was designed to follow exterior building walls until an ingress route was detected. Reactive control was then used to traverse the doorway and gather reconnaissance. Entering a dangerous environment to gather intelligence autonomously will provide an invaluable resource to any C2 team. The holistic approach of platform development, sensor suite design, and control serves as the philosophy of this work.Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering -- Drexel University, 200

Autonomous hovering of a fixed-wing micro air vehicle

Paper presented at the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, ICRA 2006, Orlando, FL.Recently, there is a need to acquire intelligence in hostile or dangerous environments such as caves, forests, or urban areas. Rather than risking human life, backpackable, bird-sized aircraft, equipped with a wireless camera, can be rapidly deployed to gather reconnaissance in such environments. However, they first must be designed to fly in tight, cluttered terrain. This paper discusses an additional flight modality for a fixedwing aircraft, enabling it to supplement existing endurance superiority with hovering capabilities. An inertial measurement sensor and an onboard processing and control unit, used to achieve autonomous hovering, are also described. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the first documented success of hovering a fixed-wing Micro Air Vehicle autonomously

A MAV that flies like an airplane and hovers like a helicopter

IEEE/ASME International Conference on Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics (AIM), Monterey, CA, pp. 699-704, July 2005Near-Earth environments, such as forests, caves, tunnels, and urban structures make reconnaissance, surveillance and search-and-rescue missions difficult and dangerous to accomplish. Micro-Air-Vehicles (MAVs), equipped with wireless cameras, can assist in such missions by providing real-time situational awareness. This paper describes an additional flight modality enabling fixed-wing MAVs to supplement existing endurance superiority with hovering capabilities. This secondary flight mode can also be used to avoid imminent collisions by quickly transitioning from cruise to hover flight. A sensor suite which will allow for autonomous hovering by regulating the aircraft’s yaw, pitch and roll angles is also described

CQAR: Closed quarter aerial robot design for reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition tasks in urban areas

International Journal of Computational Intelligence, Volume 1, Number 4, 2004. Retrieved April 2006 from http://prism2.mem.drexel.edu/~paul/papers/ohIjci2004.pdfThis paper describes a prototype aircraft that can fly slowly, safely and transmit wireless video for tasks like reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition. The aircraft is designed to fly in closed quarters like forests, buildings, caves and tunnels which are often spacious but GPS reception is poor. Envisioned is that a small, safe and slow flying vehicle can assist in performing dull, dangerous and dirty tasks like disaster mitigation, search-and-rescue and structural damage assessment

Flying insect inspired vision for autonomous aerial robot maneuvers in near-earth environments

Proceedings of the 2004 IEEE International Conference on Robotics & Automation. Retrieved April 2006 from http://prism2.mem.drexel.edu/~paul/papers/greenOhBarrowsIcra2004.pdfNear-Earth environments are time consuming, labor intensive and possibly dangerous to safe guard. Accomplishing tasks like bomb detection, search-andrescue and reconnaissance with aerial robots could save resources. This paper describes the adoption of insect behavior and flight patterns to devolop a AtAV sensor suite. A prototype called CQAR: Closed Quarter Aerial Robot, which is capable of flying in and around buildings, through tunnels and in and out of caves will be used to validate the eficiency of such a method when equipped with optic flow microsensors

“This Place Is Going to Burn”: Measuring Prison Climate in Three Facilities

Despite the common adage that prison facilities often carry a unique mark of the “warden’s world,” few studies have compared characteristics among individual facilities over time. This study utilizes two waves of prison surveys (N = 525) that produce markers of perceived prison climate at the facility level; contributions fill three voids in correctional literature: facility-level comparison of prison climate; interactions of institutional characteristics; and predictors of change over time. Research is conducted within three facilities in one U.S. Midwest state, utilizing social climate instruments (primarily EssenCES) established internationally. Three main findings result: First, facilities-as-place share commonalities but also exert distinguishable and independent effects on perceived livability. Second, the study confirms several metrics that exert influence on livability, including staff support, inmate support, and inmate threat. Third, statistical models capture climate change over time and identify significant predictors, including measures of support, threat, and “assurance” (sense of belonging and purpose). Four regression models consistently capture meaningful change during a particularly volatile state-wide environment, with each facility responding somewhat differently. The authors suggest that measures of prison climate over time may indicate a conceptual tensile strength, or potential breaking point, in institutional stability

Competition to identify key challenges for unmanned aerial robots in near earth environments

IEEE International Conference on Advanced Robotics, Seattle, WA, pp. 303-308, July 2005. Retrieved April 2006 from http://prism2.mem.drexel.edu/~paul/papers/greenIcar2005.pdfTasks like bomb-detection, search-and-rescue, and reconnaissance in near-Earth environments are time, cost and labor intensive. Aerial robots could assist in such missions and offset the demand in resources and personnel. However, flying in environments rich with obstacles presents many more challenges which have yet to be identified. For example, telephone wire is one obstacle that is known to be hard to detect in mid-flight. This paper describes a safe and easy to fly platform in conjunction with an aerial robot competition to highlight key challenges when flying in near- Earth environments

Two-Dimensional echocardiographic imaging of distal right coronary artery in kawasaki disease

No Abstract.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/38184/1/1870120513_ftp.pd