Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Detect Turfgrass Drought

Avionics Systems Development for Small Unmanned Aircraft

The avionics systems for two small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are considered from the point of view of hardware selection, navigation and control algorithm design, and software development. Some common challenges for many small UAV systems are addressed, including gust disturbance rejection at low speeds, control power, and systems integration. A rapid prototyping simulation framework whic...

Unmanned aircraft systems as wingmen

This paper introduces a method to integrate Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) into a highly functional manned/ unmanned team through the design and implementation of 3D distributed formation/flight control algorithms with the goal to act as wingmen for a manned aircraft. The proposed algorithms are designed to increase UAS autonomy, dynamically modify formations, utilize standard operating forma...

Cooperative Electronic Chaining Using Small Unmanned Aircraft

When using a team of small unmanned aircraft, with no satellite communications, the operational range of the team is typically limited by line-of-sight communication constraints between an individual aircraft and a ground station, and not the endurance range of the individual aircraft within the team. By using electronic chaining to form a multi-hop communication link using the team, the overal...

Research with Collaborative Unmanned Aircraft Systems

We provide an overview of ongoing research which targets development of a principled framework for mixed-initiative interaction with unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). UASs are now becoming technologically mature enough to be integrated into civil society. Principled interaction between UASs and human resources is an essential component in their future uses in complex emergency services or blueli...

Handling Qualities Evaluations of Unmanned Aircraft Systems