Desenvolupament d’una eina de planificació de vol per UAVs

Aquest document té com a finalitat el desenvolupament d’una eina de planificació de vol per Aeronaus no Tripulades (UAV). Per fer-ho, primerament es realitza una introducció general al programa ideat i una explicació dels seus modes de funcionament. Posteriorment es descriu la teoria i l’implementació de cada bloc que forma el programa per separat. En el capítol següent es parla dels softwares utilitzats i es descriu el codi breument, classe a classe. Per acabar es proposen tres casos pràctics sobre el funcionament dels diferents modes de l’eina. És en aquesta part del treball on es posa en evidència el funcionament en conjunt de tots els diferents blocs que formen el programa. L’eina de planificació de vol per UAVs té com a objectiu principal crear les bases per realitzar un pla de vol de manera automàtica a partir d’unes dades reduïdes d’entrada, que depenen del mode de funcionament de la mateixa eina. No obstant, els tres modes es basen en el mateix procediment de funcionament: A partir d’uns obstacles i una altura de vol definida per l’usuari o per la pròpia eina es crea un diagrama de rutes segures al voltant dels obstacles de tal manera que, seguint les arestes d’aquest diagrama es poden unir dos punts sense colisionar amb cap obstacle. Posteriorment, es cerca la ruta òptima entre aquests dos punts i es representen els resultats obtinguts mitjançant Google Earth. Aquesta eina ha estat implementada mitjançant el llenguatge C-Sharp, de la plataforma .NET

Estimating fuel consumption from radar tracks

Fuel consumption is one of the major considerations for both the impact of aviation in the environment and the cost of operations. This paper assesses the accuracy of a method capable of producing aircraft fuel estimates based on their 4D trajectory and the weather forecast. Fuel consumption estimates generated for 2448 descents are compared with the flight data recorder (FDR) values provided by the airline. Fuel consumption is estimated by taking the 4D trajectory from two different sources: the FDR system itself and surveillance radar tracks. In both cases, the Base of Aircraft Data (BADA) and a model that fits manufacturers’ performance data to polynomial functions are used to represent aircraft performance. Results obtained with the later show that fuel usage could be estimated with an accuracy of 16 kg (4.8%) by using the 4D trajectory as reported by the FDR system and 28 kg (7.8%) by using surveillance radar observations. It is also observed that the BADA 3.6 model underestimates the fuel consumption, illustrating the need for an improved performance model in the terminal manoeuvring area.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Controles de trabajo en grupo para mejorar la interdependencia positiva

En esta ponencia se describe un mecanismo para generar interdependencia positiva en el marco de una asignatura que usa el aprendizaje basado en proyectos. La interdependencia positiva hace que los miembros de un grupo perciban que el trabajo e implicación de todos es imprescindible para el éxito del grupo. El mecanismo descrito se basa en una serie de controles individuales distribuidos a lo largo del curso. En estos controles, cada alumno debe responder a una pregunta sobre el trabajo que están realizando, que será sencilla para los alumnos implicados y difícil para los que no lo están. La nota individual en estos controles de grupo afecta también a la nota individual de los compañeros de grupo. En la ponencia se describe el mecanismo y se valoran su utilidad a la luz de las primeras experiencias de utilización.SUMMARY -- This paper describes a mechanism that generates positive interdependence within a subject which uses project based learning. Positive interdependence makes the members of a group to perceive their own work and involvement as essential to the success of the whole group. The mechanism described is based on several short exams distributed along the course. In these tests, each student must answer a question about the work the group is doing. This question is made so that is easily answered by those involved students but tricky otherwise. The individual exam score also affects on the score of the peer members. The paper describes the mechanism and its usefulness in the light of the first experiences

Evaluation of separation strategies for unmanned aerial sytems

This paper analyzes loss of separation scenarios when an Unmanned Aircraft (UA) enters in conflict with a much faster airplane flying at the same altitude. Separation distances are analyzed in terms of minimum heading changes and reaction times. Results show that maneuvers need to be performed well in advance if the (low-speed) UA is the aircraft that changes its heading. In some cases the time in which the UA and the intruder are in conflict could be too long, and may even involve multiple airliners flying over the same airway. Given that standard separation strategies may have a negative impact on the UA mission, in this paper a set of pre-planned separation maneuvers are proposed. These maneuvers aim to improve the situational awareness of both air traffic controller and UA pilotin- command, but also to disrupt as less as possible the mission performed by the UA and to minimize the uncertainty in the reactions the UA may adopt autonomously if the link with the ground station is lost. Some preliminary real-time simulations are shown, using a UA ground station simulator linked to a air traffic control simulator.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author’s final draft

Real-time Identification of Guidance Modes in Aircraft Descents Using Surveillace Data

© 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.37th DASC Best student paper award,2018; premi al millor article de la conferència on el primer autor és un estudiant, atorgat per l'Institute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersTrajectory predictors require information on the flight-intent in order to estimate the future state of the aircraft. At present, however, such information is not available or it is very limited and coarse (unless predicting the ownship trajectory). In this paper, an interacting multiple-model (IMM) algorithm is proposed to improve the accuracy of short-term trajectory predictions. The active guidance mode of an aircraft is estimated in real-time observing flight data collected only from automatic dependent surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) and transponder selective mode (Mode S) emissions. The algorithm is set up with different models corresponding to the most typical guidance modes, and provides the model that better fits the observations. The proposed algorithm is validated by means of two simulated trajectories whose guidance modes were known beforehand. Finally, the performance of the algorithm with real flight data is demonstrated through a detailed example. Promising results are obtained, showing that the active guidance mode can be unequivocally identified with a negligible delay.Peer ReviewedAward-winningPostprint (published version

A macroscopic performance analysis of NASA’s northrop grumman RQ-4A

This work was partially funded by the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of Spain under Contract TRA2016-77012-R and by EUROCONTROL acting on behalf of the SESAR Joint Undertaking (the SJU) and the European Union as part of Work Package E in the SESAR ProgrammeThis paper presents the process of identification, from a macroscopic point of view, of the Northrop Grumman RQ-4A Global Hawk Remote-Piloted Aircraft System from real, but limited flight information. Performance parameters and operational schemes will be extracted by analyzing available data from two specific science flights flown by the Global Hawk back in 2010. Each phase of the flight, take-off, climb, cruise climb, descent and landing, is analyzed from various points of view: speed profile, altitude, climb/descent ratios and rate of turn. The key performance parameters derived from individual flights will be confirmed by performing a wider statistical validation with additional flight trajectories. Derived data are exploited to validate a simulated RQ-4A vehicle employed in extensive real-time air traffic management simulated integration exercises and to complement the development of a future RQ-4A trajectory predictor.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Real-time simulations to evaluate the RPAS integration in shared airspace

This paper presents the work done during the first year in the WP-E project ERAINT (Evaluation of the RPAS-ATM Interaction in Non-Segregated Airspace) that intends to evaluate by means of human-in-the-loop real-time simulations the interaction between a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) and the Air Traffic Management (ATM) when a Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) is being operated in shared airspace. This interaction will be evaluated from three different perspectives. First, the separation management, its results are presented in this paper. Secondly, during the next year, the contingency management, also including loss of link situations and, lastly, the capacity impact of such operations in the overall ATM system. The used simulation infrastructure allows to simulate realistic exercises from both the RPAS Pilot-in-Command (PiC) and the Air Traffic Controller (ATCo) perspectives. Moreover, it permits to analyze the actual workload of the ATC and to evaluate several support tools and different RPAS levels of automation from the PiC and ATC sides. The simulation results and the usefulness of the support tools are presented for each selected concept of operations.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

Acoustic emission across the magnetostructural transition of the giant magnetocaloric Gd5Si2Ge2 compound

We report on the existence of acoustic emission during the paramagnetic-monoclinic to ferromagnetic-orthorhombic magnetostructural phase transition in the giant magnetocaloric Gd5Si2Ge2 compound. The transition kinetics have been analyzed from the detected acoustic signals. It is shown that this transition proceeds by avalanches between metastable states.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Estimation and prediction of weather variables from surveillance data using spatio-temporal Kriging

© 2017 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Best paper award in Weather session at the 36th DASC - Digital Avionics Systems ConferenceState-of-the-art weather data obtained from numerical weather predictions are unlikely to satisfy the requirements of the future air traffic management system. A potential approach to improve the resolution and accuracy of the weather predictions could consist on using airborne aircraft as meteorological sensors, which would provide up-to-date weather observations to the sur- rounding aircraft and ground systems. This paper proposes to use Kriging, a geostatistical interpolation technique, to create short- term weather predictions from scattered weather observations derived from surveillance data. Results show that this method can accurately capture the spatio-temporal distribution of the temperature and wind fields, allowing to obtain high-quality local, short-term weather predictions and providing at the same time a measure of the uncertainty associated with the prediction.Peer ReviewedAward-winningPostprint (published version

Dynamic flight plan design for UAS remote sensing applications

The development of Flight Control Systems (FCS) coupled with the availability of other Commercial Off-The Shelf (COTS) components is enabling the introduction of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into the civil market. UAS have great potential to be used in a wide variety of civil applications such as environmental applications, emergency situations, surveillance tasks and more. In general, they are specially well suited for the so-called D-cube operations (Dirty, Dull or Dangerous). Current technology greatly facilitates the construction of UAS. Sophisticated flight con- trol systems also make them accessible to end users with little aeronautical expertise. How- ever, we believe that for its successful introduction into the civil market, progress needs to be made to deliver systems able to perform a wide variety of missions with minimal reconfiguration and with reduced operational costs. Most current flight plan specification mechanisms consist in a simple list of waypoints, an approach that has important limitations. This paper proposes a new specification mech- anism with semantically richer constructs that will enable the end user to specify more complex flight plans. The proposed formalism provides means for specifying iterative be- havior, conditional branching and other constructs to dynamically adapt the flight path to mission circumstances. Collaborating with the FCS, a new module on-board the UAS will be in charge of executing these plans. This research also studies how the proposed flight plan structure can be tailored to the specific needs of remote sensing. For these type of applications well structured and efficient area and perimeter scanning is mandatory. In this paper we introduce several strategies focused to optimize the scanning process for tactical or mini UAS. The paper also presents a prototype implementation of this module and the results obtained in simulations.Postprint (published version