|
Command & Control
Unmanned Systems in ISR Transformation Experimentation
Frank Roberts, U.S. Joint Forces Command/J28 Plans & Programs
USJFCOM is focused on how to transform unmanned systems interoperability by ensuring new systems are born joint and integrated in a joint context that best serves the needs of warfighters. The Command s initial efforts to influence unmanned systems integration in the late nineties focused on achieving interoperability through common ground stations. Recently, the Command shifted from a platform-centric approach to emphasizing data interoperability and dissemination. The question is no longer about controlling unmanned platforms; it s about exploiting network capabilities to get imagery and other data to warfighters who need it most,and in a timely manner regardless of location or echelon of command.
Looking ahead through 2008, USJFCOM will continue building on past experimentation efforts, seeking to find the best solutions to make ISR data accessible to warfighters at every level. At the tactical level, key to delivering ISR data is the ability to transmit through low-bandwidth RF pathways. The next step is to ensure data is ubiquitous, pervasive, and agnostic across networks. This promotes interoperability and facilitates turning data into knowledge and understanding of adversary movement and intent across contiguous and non-contiguous battlespaces. USJFCOM, through its experimentation program, will continue seeking the best possible solutions to enhance ISR effectiveness.
Underwater Positioning System Using Terrain Matching
Dr. Hiroshi Nagakura, Nobuya Yoshimoto, Dr. Shinichi Miyamoto, Yoichiro Asano, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
This paper investigates the possibility of underwater terrain referenced navigation. The experiments were conducted for a flat sandy seafloor and a rugged rocky seafloor. The survey maps, the horizontal grid size of which was 1m x 1m, were acquired first by using the multibeam echo sounder system, and then the depth maps beneath a surface vehicle were measured. The matching algorithm employed was to minimize the distance between the measured maps and the pre-surveyed maps, or the distance between the 2D spectra of both maps. The positions estimated by terrain matching are in good agreement with the actual positions obtained by D-GPS for a rugged area. The agreement between the estimated and the actual positions for a flat area are also good, as far as there exists some small dips or rises which are detectable by the multibeam echo sounder.
Operator Interface for the Control of Multiple Semi-Autonomous UGVs
Dr. Chris Jones, Dr. Scott Lenser, iRobot Corporation
The effective control and coordination of multiple Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) is both challenging and necessary if such systems are to be successfully deployed. UGVs are not able to operate completely autonomously in scenarios where objectives may be vague, conflicting, or continuously changing. Nor can a small number of human operators be expected to effectively control a large number of UGVs through direct tele-operation. Therefore, it is highly desirable to develop an operator interface allowing a small number of human operators to control a large number of UGVs in an efficient and coordinated manner.
This paper presents work on the development of operator interface technologies that have been shown to enable a single human operator to control multiple semi-autonomous UGVs. In addition to interface design, we also consider issues including mechanisms by which the operator can task the UGVs at a system-level and means by which the operator can be provided situational awareness regarding on-going UGV operations. Such an interface allows for more capable UGV systems and reduces demand on the operator. The effectiveness of the presented interface is demonstrated in an exploration task where a single human operator controls multiple semi-autonomous UGVs.
Fully Automatic Control from Takeoff to Landing of a UAV Based on a Single-Antenna GPS Receiver
Sanghyo Lee, Am Cho, Jihoon Kim, Changdon Kee, Seoul National University
GPS receivers are widely used for numerous applications as a navigation sensor and a single-antenna GPS receiver usually gives time, position, and velocity information.
However, we can estimate aircraft attitude for automatic control from the measurements of a single-antenna GPS receiver using kinematic constraints of fixed-wing aircraft. The authors demonstrated, in the previous papers, the flight test results of automatic control including waypoint path following control, thus showing feasibility of controlling a UAV automatically only using a single-antenna GPS receiver.
This paper deals with fully automatic control of a UAV from takeoff to landing using a single-antenna GPS receiver as a primary sensor. Angular rate measurements of rate gyros are used to augment stability of the aircraft without any integrating schemes, improving its responsibility and robustness. DGPS is implemented to give high-accuracy position information for automatic landing. During flight tests, the aircraft takes off the runway, follows the predefined or real-time commanded path, and then lands on the runway along the curved approach path, all fully automatically.
Based on the flight test results, we claim that a single-antenna GPS receiver can be used as a main sensor for a backup or low-cost control system of General Aviation aircraft and UAVs.
Flying UAVs in the Commercial Air Space
Dr. David Vos, Athena Technologies, Inc.
For UAVs to become more effective in future military operations and to accommodate their enormous commercial potential, they need to be interoperable with manned systems in commercial air space. One of the primary challenges with flying UAVs in commercial air space is in the ability to reliably control the aircraft. Flight control systems are playing a key role in the overall movement to enable manned and unmanned aircraft to co-exist in the foreseeable future (5+ years).
Dr. Vos presentation would cover methods to achieve high reliability and interoperability in UAVs using flight controls systems, tools, and techniques. This would all be discussed from a case study standpoint based on implementing control systems for multiple UAV programs including, the US Army s Shadow, the US Air Force s Target Drone, Alenia s Sky-X, among others.
Dr. Vos would also discuss recovery from single point failures, innovative lower-cost approaches to redundancy, adherence to hardware and software certification requirements, in addition to fault tolerance and damage tolerance. He would conclude by painting a picture of what the commercial air space will look like in the next five years with both manned and unmanned aircraft.
Countering the Emerging Mini UAV Threat to the Homeland
Dr. Wilson Engel, III, BlueForce LLC
Mini Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have low radar cross section, low infrared signature and low acoustic signature. They are capable of carrying a variety of payloads, including off-the-shelf avionics, sensors, communications suites and weapons of mass destruction. They cannot be detected by CONUS air search radar systems, and they cannot be targeted by conventional means. Their range, robustness and loiter time are increasing exponentially. In many ways they are preferable to cruise missiles (some of whose systems they can share), in that they are inexpensive ($25K per bird), available, transportable, reusable and relatively easy to operate from a laptop (up to five birds simultaneously) at ranges exceeding 800 nm.
Mini UAVs will eventually be used against the American Homeland, but because of their stealth characteristics and currently installed detection capabilities, we may not know when we are under attack until we experience the results, and we may not realize that effects of terror are produced by Mini UAVs even well after the fact.
Countering this emerging threat must become a near term (2-5 year) imperative, but complexities abound. We need a mission area focus and processing capability within Joint Command and Control (JC2) to handle countering this emerging threat.
Bandwidth Agile Sensor Swarm: Command and Control for Autonomous Unmanned Vehicles
Randy Dieterle, Brandon Goldfedder, Information Extraction and Transport, Inc., Douglas Hart, Cyberneutics, Inc.
The deployment of increasingly sophisticated unmanned vehicle systems (UVS) has shown that the cognitive operator burden increases with the technical complexity of the system. This burden necessarily increases when there are more vehicles to control. One promising approach for reducing the ratio of operators to UVS can be found in nature the emergent collective intelligence of simple autonomous agents, or swarming. As a branch of distributed artificial intelligence, decentralized robotic swarming has proven difficult to reduce to practice, especially for complex and lethal environments such as a 4-dimensional battlespace. Numerous optimization methods have been proposed for modeling group behavior, but none have successfully exited the laboratory in the military domain.
This paper describes the Bandwidth Agile Sensor Swarm (BASS) program. BASS provides critical middleware to run on UVS and their various control nodes. BASS employs Bayesian computational inference techniques to 1) enable robotic swarm intelligence to achieve locationally flexible collaboration amongst UVS based on diverse and evolving target behavior and 2) allow UVS to perform distributed, autonomous, and incremental situation assessment. BASS algorithms have been developed and tested in simulation for U.S. Navy air, surface and subsurface UVS performing littoral battlespace missions against mobile targets.
Reactive Navigation of an Autonomous Ground Vehicle Using Dynamic Expansion Zones
Joseph Putney, Virginia Tech
This paper presents the implementation of the Dynamic Expansion Zone (DEZ) reactive scheme for high speed, off-road ground vehicle navigation. Autonomous navigation of UGVs through an unstructured, off-road terrain presents many challenges. The task becomes even more difficult without a priori knowledge of the terrain. Safely traversing various types of obstacle rich terrain becomes increasingly problematic with higher speeds. Reactive navigation schemas are often quickly dismissed as overly simplistic and inferior to deliberative approaches. Many of the traditional shortcomings of reactive navigation paradigms have been overcome through a combination of a hybrid reactive/deliberative speed control and dynamic expansion of behavior defining zones. By focusing on a set of dynamic zones around the vehicle, DEZ can command the appropriate behavior with the use of minimal resources. The recent implementation of the DEZ reactive navigation algorithm on the Virginia Tech DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle is presented as a case study for this approach. |
Events
