10/19/2005

ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SCCopyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005

James D. Paduano 1

NTC ACTIVITIES 2005Outline

1) Activities Joint w/ MIT ONR STTR Phase II Final

Demonstration AFOSR STTR - Autonomy w/

Imperfect Comms

2) XS-Series Helicopter Development New flight systems Aerial photography + other apps

3) Vision in Autonomous Aircraft HILsim for Optic Flow Sensors Optical Target for Precision

Hover & Land

10/19/2005

ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SCCopyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005

James D. Paduano 2

1) JOINT MIT / NTC ACTIVITIES

• ONR STTR: Multi-vehicle cooperation in urban environment

• Final Demonstration: 2-vehicle beyond line-of-sight recon

– 2 fully autonomous rotorcraft– Real-time coordination by MILP– ‘Away’ UAV goes beyond line-of-sight– ‘Relay’ UAV maintains LOS w/ ‘Away’

UAV and ground station

Aeronautics &Astronautics

Flight Data in ‘Suburban’ Terrain: Red=Away, Green=Relay

• AFOSR STTR: CSAT with Intermittent Communication

• Capabilities being developed– Robust Distributed Task Assignment– Comm. emulation for multi-vehicle

HILsim and flight testing– Communication Health Management– Low-cost on-board planning module

• Phase II Testbed: MIT Fixed-Wing Fleet

RDTA Concept (How, MIT)

10/19/2005

ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SCCopyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005

James D. Paduano 3

2) XS-Series Helicopter Development

• New airframe, alternator, & 60W UPS• Gas power, comms ~5 mile range• Lighter weight avionics & suspension• Mount points for cameras & sensors• New ground operator console/moving map• Automatic take-off, landing, waypoint

navigation, and real-time path uplink (for centralized coordination)

• Fail-safe and reversion modes

• Aerial photography/videography:– Stable, hovering platform– Higher altitudes than feasible manually– More accurate altitude, heading

• Testbed: Open architecture for integration of additional sensors

• “VTUAV surrogate”– < 25 lbs: Lower cost, risk– 2 x 0.7 GHz Pentium processors on

board for testing autonomy, vision, etc.

NEAR-TERM APPLICATIONS

10/19/2005

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James D. Paduano 4

3) Vision in Autonomous Aircraft

• Optic Flow Sensor Testing (DARPA)– Sensor from Centeye Inc.– HILsim environment with urban terrain

• Feasibility of See-and-Avoid Using Optic Flow

– 2nd ‘Threat’ Vehicle Simulated in HILsim environment

– Detection, avoidance tests conducted

• Algorithms for Dodging / Urban Nav

• Optical Target for Precision Landing– Patented design using Moire patterns– Prelim. development underway at MIT– Next phase beginning at NTC

• Features– Position/orientation relative to target

derived using passive imagery– Position sensitivity ~1 cm– Low resolution imagery sufficient to

deduce relative position Aeronautics &

Astronautics