Built in Collision Avoidance for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)

Why Collision Avoidance? 1.Consider the Raven mission: –Battalion level tool –Reconnaissance missions –Patrol the perimeter of camps –Search of IEDs 2.Consider the price decrease –A full system (ground station+3 UAV+ spare) started initially at about $320,000 -> $250,000 in > $130,000 in 2009

In Near Future A battalion will have multiple UAS It is more convenient to plan the missions for each Raven INDEPENDENTLY Given the weight of UAVs, it must be sensitive to wind (course will deviate from planned mission)  need for real time adjustments

Constraints on UAS Upper limit on the altitude Lower limit on the altitude (stealth or regulations) Speed within a limited range Limited communications range for low end UAS

Auburn Objective (2008) “fly safely and efficiently, in a limited space, a fleet of autonomous UAVs on a cooperative mission with terrestrial vehicles. ” Challenging Constraints –UAVs must fly at constant speed –UAVs must fly at the same altitude

Completed Tasks Since August 2008 Started with an amateur platform Summer 2010: Auburn adds a digital data link based on Zigbee –Multi hop mesh network (UAVs can be used as relays/routers) –On fly waypoints updates

Completed Tasks Since August 2008 Summer 2011: – Symbiotic software architecture –Three collision avoidance algorithms (different families) Summer 2012 –Five more collision avoidance Summer 2013 –Ground station –Auto-configuration

Software Architecture

Achievements Ground station Fly up to 16 UAVs in 1 km x 1km with no near miss Fly up to 8 UAVs in a 500 m x 500 m wih no near miss

Ground Station (Screen)

Ongoing Improvements Increase the communication range Securing the link Make UASfault tolerant to GPS failures/jamming Decrease failed launches (low end UAS) Internet enabled (remote control/data collection)

Questions?