Cadets Gain Skills Building Advanced UAVs
Cadets and faculty
working in the Intelligent Robotics Laboratory in the Colorado
Springs, CO-based USAF Academy Department of Electrical And
Computer Engineering here are designing and building more the next
generation of sophisticated autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles --
UAVs that will even be able to communicate with each other, working
to search, track, and destroy targets as a team.
Another type will be able to hover in place.
The department is working on two separate, but interdependent,
projects to develop a distributed network for a set of UAVs. For
the first project, six cadets majoring in electrical engineering,
computer engineering and system engineering management are working
with faculty to build an air-to-air UAV communication network as
their capstone senior design project.
The ongoing project, an extension of work done last year, is
sponsored by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research. The
research team must design, build and test a system network
comprised of one ground tracking station and three UAVs. The system
sends and receives telemetry and video data within the network,
detecting and capturing targets using controllable sensor systems,
and displays multiple video images on a ground tracking station
screen.
"Decisions have to be made based on contradicting factors," said
Dr. Daniel Pack, engineering professor. "Right now we’re
focusing our efforts on the issues related to the system design
before we build and test a prototype this spring."
The network must allow all three UAVs to communicate with the
ground tracking station, while also allowing each UAV to
communicate with each other -- independent of the ground control.
Bandwidth usage is only one of several considerations cadets have
to account for as they make engineering decisions.
“The challenge is to have three video feeds transmitted
simultaneously within the network using a limited bandwidth,”
said Pack.
While the system linking the multiple UAVs is still compromised
by available bandwidth, it will still allow the units to cover a
larger operation area away from the ground tracking station. Cadets
are currently working on the communication system analysis portion
of the project, to determine the best video signal they can expect
to send in a realistic case without destabilizing the network.
They are also working to improve the performance of an onboard
camera sensor system. Cadets have even designed their own gimbal
that allows the onboard camera in three dimensions -- reducing the
need to fly the UAV over a target many times at different flight
attitudes.
In general, compared to a single sophisticated UAV, a set can
complete a task faster, collect more relevant data, more accurately
sense the environment, provide redundancy -- if one UAV fails, the
group can compensate -- and offer alternatives.
In many military applications, multiple UAVs are necessary to
perform the required tasks, such as providing the close coverage of
a large area and the capability to engage in multiple
mission-critical activities at the same time. Such tasks are not
feasible for a single system, no matter how powerful the system may
be, Pack said.
The relatively low sophistication involved in creating a set of
UAVs, compared to one complex UAV, makes multiple cooperative UAVs
more attractive to researchers and operators, he added.
Cadets working on the earlier stage of the project last year
successively built three mobile robots that could cooperatively
detect and destroy a simulated target. The next step is to
successfully complete the same demonstration with UAVs in
flight.
For the third project, four cadets with mentors from electrical
and computer engineering and the aeronautics departments are
working to design a hovering UAV in the senior capstone design
course.
The aeronautics department delivered the platform for the
vehicle. Engineering cadets are working toward a final flying
system with onboard control electronic components that can
autonomously lift, land and control its flight while avoiding
obstacles.
Last year’s prototype was able to fly for several seconds
before it spun out of control and went down.
The military is interested in the possibility of replacing human
intelligence with hovering UAVs. A hovering UAV can conduct close
surveillance on a specific area for long periods of time.
Unlike a standard UAV, a hovering UAV could conceivably perch on
a tree or a building, continuously collecting important data. The
success of these projects can directly impact future Air Force use
of UAVs, officials said.
(Aero-News salutes Eddie Kovsky, USAFA Public
Affairs)