For the second time in a little over 10 years, the state of Louisiana has been hit hard by flooding. Since the second flooding, which began in early August of 2016, the Louisiana National Guard has been diligently working to provide emergency flood response aid. One area of aid the Louisiana National Guard has been aggressively focused on is the search and rescue of people and animals. To date the Louisiana National Guard has rescued 11,085 people and 1,400 animals (Louisiana National Guard, 2016). They were able to achieve this through their use of various boats, automobiles and helicopters. Despite the fleet of vehicles, the Louisiana National Guard has they are still unable to access certain areas due to vast areas of dangerous terrain. This is where unmanned aerial vehicles or UAVs can assist. UAVs are capable of flying into dangerous terrain, and by using various onboard payloads, can locate victims in hard to reach or difficult to see places. One such example of a UAV assisting with search and rescue happened in 2013. In early May of 2013, a Canadian man was driving on an icy road at night when his vehicle went off the road (Kelly, 2013). The Royal Canadian Mounted Police attempted to use night vision goggles and a helicopter to locate the man, but they were unsuccessful because of the environment in which they were looking. Fortunately, the emergency responders were able to employ an unmanned aircraft with an infrared camera, which was able to detect the man's and point responders in the right location to rescue him (Kelly, 2013).
Based on the evidence of the usefulness of UAVs in search and rescue, the Louisiana National Guard has contracted Green Lantern Aviation to design a UAV to meet their search and rescue needs.
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS AND DECISIONS
In order to design the most efficient UAV for the Louisiana National Guard, there are some design considerations and decisions that must be made. First, in order to prevent the cost and time of designing an unmanned aerial system or UAS from the ground up, most of the components of the UAS will be acquired commercially off the shelf. The aircraft itself will be a form of a quadcopter, similar to Microdrones MD4-100 (Microdrones, n.d.). This type of aircraft will provide the best capability for the Louisiana National Guard to hover and perform agile maneuvering in small spaces to search for people and animals (Arain & Moeini, 2016). However, in order for all the components to work, each system module (e.g. C2, Payload, Data-link, etc.) must be designed/acquired with a plug and play mindset. By keeping down the cost it will allow the Louisiana National Guard to purchase more UAS to provide the best coverage during national disasters, such as flooding.
Another design decision/consideration are the dual cameras onboard the UAV. There will be a daytime camera, capable of a 1080p resolution. There will also be an IR camera which will have at least a 640p resolution. The resolution on the IR camera can be lower than the daytime camera because the sensitivity of the IR camera can be adjusted depending on the UAV surroundings (e.g. smoke, bodies of water, dry land, etc.). However, regardless of the camera, the control station will be able to easily switch between both while providing the operator the ability to overlay map and GPS data over the video feed.
Furthermore, the entire UAS will be designed to have multiple levels of redundancy. This includes the ability to change out components without affecting operability and multiple ways to control the aircraft. One novel feature to the redundancy will be the emergency control unit. In the case of an extreme in-flight emergency, operators will be able to control the aircraft, but only the aircraft, back to a rescue location.
Lastly, because the UAS is an aircraft at its core, there are some licensing/certification decisions that must be made. They are:
- The UAS will be operating only within the U.S. (Some countries require permission before unmanned aircraft can operate at all, such as Nepal (Ferris-Rotman, 2015). Therefore the Louisiana National Guard will refrain from providing the UAS to other nations.
- The UAS will not be operating in the national airspace, however, it will be partnered with an existing emergency responder entity that has legally obtained a certificate of authorization to operate UAS
1 Command & Control (C2) 1.1 Shall be capable of manual and autonomous operation
1.1.1 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall provide an input method for operator to set parameters for autonomous operation (e.g. required altitude, heading, etc.)
1.1.2 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall have specific buttons/switches that allow operator to switch between manual and autonomous mode
1.1.3 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall display the mode the aircraft is currently in.
1.2 Shall provide redundant flight control to prevent flyway
1.2.1 [Derived requirement] – C2 shall provide more than one method to operate the air vehicle (e.g. control via a laptop computer or joystick).
1.2.2 [Derived requirement] – C2 shall provide the ability to quickly swap out components (e.g. laptops, control surfaces, batteries, etc.) without affecting operations.
1.2.3 [Derived requirement] – C2 shall provide connectivity to an emergency control unit in case the main GCS becomes inoperable
1.3 Shall visually depict telemetry of air vehicle element
1.3.1 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall provide the standard six-pack instrumentation (i.e. altitude indicator, heading indicator, airspeed indicator, vertical speed indicator, turn coordinator, attitude indicator)
1.3.2 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall provide state of health information (e.g. voltage, amperage, internal temperature, external temperature, etc.)
1.4 Shall visually depict payload sensor views
1.4.1 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall provide digital detail enhancement (i.e. digital video stabilization, digital zoom, etc)
1.4.2 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall have a command which will switch between Daytime and IR camera
1.4.3 [Derived requirement] – C2 control station shall be able to overlay data over the payload sensor view (e.g. radiometric, position/map, etc.)
2 Payload
2.1 Shall be capable of color daytime video operation up to 500 feet AGL
2.1.1 [Derived requirement] – Daytime camera shall provide a video resolution of at least 1280 x 720
2.1.2 [Derived requirement] – Daytime camera shall provide a video frame rate of 60 fps
2.2 Shall be capable of infrared (IR) video operation to 500 feet AGL
2.2.1 [Derived requirement] – IR camera shall provide a video resolution of at least 640 x 512.
2.2.2 [Derived requirement] – IR camera shall provide a video frame rate of 30 fps.
2.2.3 [Derived requirement] – IR camera shall be able to manually set the temperature sensitivity via GCS software.
2.3 Shall be interoperable with C2 and data-link
2.3.1 [Derived requirement] – Payload shall be connected directly to the air vehicle via a plug and play wiring harness
2.3.2 [Derived requirement] – Payload shall encode video and auditory data in a format that requires the least amount of bandwidth (e.g. MP4)
2.3.3 [Derived requirement] – Payload shall be operated through the GCS using open source software.
2.4 Shall use power provided by air vehicle element
2.4.1 [Derived requirement] – Payload shall match the type of electrical system as the air vehicle element (i.e. AC or DC)
2.4.2 [Derived requirement] – Payload shall require no more than 15 volts
3 Data Link (communications)
3.1 Shall be capable of communication range exceeding two miles visual line of sight (VLOS)
3.1.1 [Derived requirement] – The data link shall primarily utilize HF radio transmission
3.2 Shall provide redundant communication capability (backup) for C2
3.2.1 [Derived requirement] – The data link shall broadcast data via at least three antennas
3.2.2 [Derived requirement] – The data link shall have at least one medium frequency / low power antenna
3.2.3 [Derived requirement] – The data link shall contain be operable on at least 5 different frequencies.
3.3 Shall use power provided by air vehicle element
3.3.1 [Derived requirement] – The data link shall require no more than 3 volts
3.3.2 [Derived requirement] – The data link shall have a dedicated battery backup
Baseline Testing
1. Command & Control (C2)
1.1. Test control station ability to control aircraft using the various control methods
1.2. Test “swap-ability” of various components (e.g. laptops, control surfaces, batteries, etc.) without affecting operations.
1.3. Verify control station’s presentation of required aircraft telemetry
1.4. Verify control station’s ability to display and control the payloads
1.5. Verify human factor issues with C2 operation (e.g. button placement, GUI colors, etc.)
2. Payload
2.1. Test ability to control both cameras from control station
2.2. Test average payload video and audio bandwidth output
2.3. Verify resolution and frame rate of daytime and IR cameras
3. Data Link (communications)
3.1. Test operability of all antennas
3.2. Test maximum range of aircraft in normal conditions
3.3. Test maximum range of aircraft under less-than-ideal conditions (i.e. rain, snow, poor terrain)
3.4. Test backup frequency aircraft control capability
3.5. Verify backup battery ability to power low power telemetry transmissions
SYSTEM DEVELOPMENT
In order to provide the best product in the least amount of time to the Louisiana National Guard, a prototype model of system development will be used. This model will allow the Green Lantern Aviation designers the opportunity to truly understand what the Louisiana National Guard UAV requirements are. Additionally, by building a prototype, and then refining the prototype, the Louisiana National Guard can identify what functionality and capability they actually need from the aircraft. While there are disadvantages to using this model; the disadvantages should be minimal due to the specific nature of the search and rescue request. Based on initial estimates, Green Lantern Aviation believes that the development of the search and rescue UAS should take approximately 13 months. This is due to through ground testing of the control station software, data link operability and payload capability. The testing strategy is to individually test the various subsystems, then test their ability to integrate as a system, and then finally certify the entire system in accordance with the Louisiana National Guard’s requirements and FAA policy.
Phase of Development Approximate Time Frame
System Development 4 Months
Ground Testing (subsystem and integration testing) 6 Months
In-Flight Testing (system certification) 3 Months
References
Arain, F., & Moeini, S. (2016). Leveraging on Unmanned Ariel Vehicle (UAV) for Effective Emergency Response and Disaster Management. World Conference on Disaster Management (pp. 1 - 11). Toronto: Alberta Institute of Technology. Retrieved from http://pmsymposium.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Arian_Moeini.pdf
Baban, N. S. (2013, June). Processing Models Of SDLC . Airoli, Navi Mumbai, India.
Ferris-Rotman, A. (2015, May 07). How Drones Are Helping Nepal Recover From The Earthquake. Retrieved from Huffington Post.com: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/07/nepal-earthquake-drones_n_7232764.html
Kelly, H. (2013, May 23). Drones: The future of disaster response. Retrieved from CNN.com: http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/23/tech/drones-the-future-of-disaster-response/
Louisiana National Guard. (2016, August 18). Louisiana National Guard Continues Flood Response Missions. Retrieved from U.S. Department of Defense: http://www.defense.gov/News/Article/Article/918383/louisiana-national-guard-continues-flood-response-missions
Microdrones. (n.d.). Microdrones MD4-1000: Robust and Powerful UAV Model. Retrieved from Micro Drones: https://www.microdrones.com/en/products/md4-1000/
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.