Micro and Mini UAV for measuring and surveying

Stefano Gennenzi

Aiviewgroup

AFCEA-MILITARY METROLOGY FOR AEROSPACEItalian Air Force Academy - Pozzuoli (Naples)

June 3rd, 2015

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What are drones?

• Drones: formally known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)

• A drone is essentially an aircraft without a human pilot on board; a “flying robot”

• Historically, UAVs were simple remotely piloted aircraft, but autonomous control is increasingly being employed

• Its flight is controlled either autonomously by onboard computers or by the remote control of a pilot on the ground or in another vehicle.

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Micro and mini-drones

Mini drone for video surveillance, used by British law enforcement

A microdrone from UK including HD camera for aerial

videos

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Use of Drones“Nowadays, new laws and valuable commercial applications could spark a revolution in the civilian world.”

Military use Civilian purposes

■ Civilian

■ Defense

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Use of Drones

Commercial applications will quickly ramp up over the next 10 years, particularly after 2020 

It is estimated that 12% of $98 billion in cumulative spending on aerial drones over the next decade will be for commercial purposes.

Unlike a decade ago, when UAVs were thought of as purely military craft, today drones are quickly navigating toward commercial applications.

Globally, military applications dominate the global UAV market

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How do drones impact the society?Drone technology provides us with a totally different lifestyle in different aspects: agriculture, goods delivery, photography, medical services, etc.

Benefits

Existing Work

Dirty Work/ Dangerous

Work

Expensive Human

Resource

More efficient

Work people

were not able to do

before

Applications

Issues

Regulation and Policy

International/territorial

standard

Human Rights

Security Risk

Invasion of Privacy Accident

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Falling Cost of DronesTechnology Dimensions of measure Time /

Period Changes Per Year

Integrated Circuits Number of transistors per chip

1971-2011 38 %

Power ICs Current Density 1993-2012 16.1 %

Battery StorageEnergy Density 2009-2014 ~ 8 %

Price level 2013-2015 - 20 %

Communication (GPS)

Accuracy of position per MB 1980-2013 ~ 20 %

Processors

Instructions per unit time 1979-2009 35.9 %

Instructions per time and dollar

1979-2009 52.2 %

Flight Controller Cost per unit (incl. software) 2010-2014 - 30 %

Materials (Carbon fiber)

Cost per kg 2005-2013 - 15 % Commercial drones price estimate to drop ~ 10% p.a.

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Miniaturization Reducing the system mass, while maintaining a good power level assuring full operativity, is becoming more and more important.

The miniaturization of ICs, sensors, and mechanical parts has contributed in a very significant way in this respect.

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Future development trendsSTRENGHTS• C

ost effective aerial transportation

• Carbon footprint reduction

• Access to remote areas

• Technological innovations driven market

WEAKNESSES• G

lobal aviation regulations need improvement

• Lack of unified international standards about crew certification, medical qualification, etc.

• High R&D cost of UAVs equipped with the necessary specialized equipment

OPPORTUNITIES• N

ew emerging market

• Development of new UAV based services

• Market place for UAV software and SDK

• Flight endurance increase with solar power

THREATS• S

low harmonizarion process of global aviation regulations for UAV operation

• New technology, which is not well tested and may have higher failure rate

SWOT ANALYSIS

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Future development trends

Indian Homeland Security, Civil Services & Private Security Applications

Number of Units Sold Forecast 2014-2024 (Number of Units, Model Design/Type)

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Future development trends

Australian Small UAV Media, Entertainment & Consumer Applications

Sales Value Forecast 2014-2024 ($m, Model Design/Type, AGR%)

FUTURE APPLICATIONS: AN OVERVIEW

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Drones for Civil Services

Surveillance Security and Safety

Traffic monitoring Fire fighting

FAA estimates as many as 30,000 drones could be flying in US in 2020.

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Drone Air Traffic ControlNASA is developing an air traffic

control system for drones

Traditional air traffic control systems need people to constantly scan

radars

Entire program managed by computers and algorithms that take into account weather patterns such as heavy winds, buildings, power lines, and other low-flying aircraft

TOMORROWTODAY

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Drone Traffic RegulationCan drones be dangerous to “traditional” air traffic?

The need for a strong harmonization of UAS regulations from single countries has led to constitution of an international group of National Aviation Authorities (JARUS) constantly working on this issue.

Opening to all civil authorities to participate

Full and active support by EASA and ICAO

All regulatory material publicly available and open for consultation (www.jarus-rpas.org)

Looking into regional organization of activities

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Drones becoming Longer-LastingThe effort made in the last few years on the improvement in

battery life, maintaining the lightweight necessary for consumer-level products, shall inevitably become a benefit for the

micro/minidrone market.

Solid-state, thin-film batteries offer better battery life with respect to lithium-ion or

alkaline, while still being thinner and lighter than existing batteries.

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Drones becoming Longer-Lasting

An innovative rechargeable, non-flammable aluminum-ion battery is bound to replace traditional lithium-ion

batteries, featuring ultra-fast charging process.

Charge time ~ 60 seconds!

Lithium-ion Aluminium-ion

Charge time ~ 30 min

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Solar-Powered Drones for the Internet

Solar-powered drones that can stay in flight for months at a 60,000 ft altitude, continuously beam data to Earth using lasers

Sun-powered drone systems can be envisioned to extend the Internet to underdeveloped countries.

The objective is to deliver Internet connections to suburban areas in limited geographical regions.

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Improvement in Energy Storage

Improvement in energy storage systems is constantly increasing – still, chemical batteries tend to be the most used

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Drone Smart Networks: the “Swarm” concept

In an effort to create a hard-to-detect surveillance drone that will operate with little or no direct human supervision in out

of the way and adverse environments, researchers are mimicking nature.

Scientists have turned to flying creatures long ago, examining their perfect conditions for flight, which have evolved over millions of years.

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Drone Smart Networks: the “Swarm” concept

“Our findings will make it possible to aerodynamically engineer a new breed of surveillance vehicles that, because they are as small as insects and also fly like them, completely blend into their surroundings”

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Swarming Drones for the Environment

“Swarms” of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) working in concert, to track, map, and respond to climate change.

Inspired by ants’ way of communicating and cooperating without any central

commander, these devices take hundreds of measurements each second, working

cooperatively toward particular missions, and avoiding each other despite moving

quickly and in tight formation

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Spying Micro-DronesA tiny helicopter providing law enforcement agencies with a pocket-sized ISR capability that provides instant situational awareness.

The pre-assembled system provides real-time live motion video back to the operator and the opportunity to take snapshots during missions. Exhibiting a range exceeding 1.5 km in a total

weight of 1.3 kg.

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Spying Micro-Drones

The next time you hear something buzzing around you, that may not be a bee or fly. It may be RoboBee and it may be spying on you.

RoboBee shows off the advance in miniature robotics and design of compact high-energy power sources, electronic “smart” sensors and coordination algorithms to manage multiple, independent machines.

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Nano-Drones

These extremely small drones will be capable of surveillance without being detected, paving the way to a huge series of real-life applications, from environment monitoring to military missions.

Nano-drones are becoming every day more of a reality.

A huge financial advantage: the average nano drone shall cost about $25 per hour to run, in comparison to

manned helicopters and planes, which can cost between $600 to $20,000 per hour.

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Bionic Drones

Mobile robots that can use Wi-Fi signals to effectively “see through” walls, raising the possibility of flying drones using the technology to see inside buildings.

The “X-ray vision” drones shall be able to see every square inch on the other side with high accuracy, figuring out where all the objects are, as well as their geometry and material type, without any prior knowledge

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Vision-Based Drone GuidanceAlmost anything that flies, be it a plane, a spacecraft, or a drone, has an inertial navigation system controlling the flight path through attitude sensors mounted aboard.

Flying insects, however, don’t have inertial/GPS systems to guide them; they

rely exclusively on what they see. 

As for drones to execute programmed autonomous flights, a GPS external signal source is required to get the information over position – this naturally arises a series of issues e.g. that of

indoor missions.

Hence a Vision-Based Approach for guidance and safe landing of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles was born, taking advantage from Optic Flow Sensors acting like an insect’s eyes.

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Vision-Based Drone GuidanceFlying insects - like bees - don't have inertial systems to guide them; they rely exclusively on what they see.

BeeRotor, a 47-centimeters long craft weighing 80 grams, flies guided by panoramic optic flow sensors and no inertial navigation

The optic flow sensor triggers a feed-back system increasing the speed of the rotors, moving the craft away from floor and obstacles.

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Vision-Based Drone GuidanceA fast and adaptive method for estimating UAV attitude from the visual horizon based only on optical information

The method imitates that used by insects to provide a fixed image of the sky and the horizon.

Using two back-to-back fish-eye lenses, a wide-angle view of the environment is captured, which is then divided into sky and ground regions using information on brightness and color combinations. The orientation of the sky and ground regions allows the aircraft to determine its roll and pitch angles with respect to the horizon.

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION

Stefano Gennenzi