Collision Avoidance for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (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 (DIY Drone Easy Star)

• 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 (Con’t)

• Summer 2011:– Integrated software architecture that allows the

evaluation of collisions avoidance (CA) algorithms using simultaneously a mix of real and virtual UAVs

– Implemented and evaluated 3 collision avoidance algorthms (different families)

• Summer 2012– Designed, implemented. And evaluated one new

collision avoidance algorithm– Implemented 4 additional CA algorithms

Software Architecture

Hardware in the Loop

Summer 2013

• Fixed wing UAS- Auburn ground station- Software testing- Auto configuration- Decentralized collision avoidance- Implementation of a hybrid collision avoidance

• New- Indoor navigation(Quadcopters)

Snapshot from Summer 2013

Ground Station (Snaphot) I

Ground Station (Snaphot) II

Questions?