Networking Issues for Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems

2016

MIC

Large amounts of data are typically generated in applications such as surveillance of power lines and railways, inspection of gas pipes, and security surveillance. In the latter application it is a necessity that the data is transmitted to the control centre "on-the-fly" for analysis. Also missions related to other applications would greatly benefit from near real-time analysis and operator interaction based on captured data. This is the motivation behind this paper on coarse offline motion-and communication-planning for cooperating Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) problem is defined in order to solve the surveillance mission. To efficiently transmit the data back to the base station the vehicles are allowed to store data for later transmission and transmit via other vehicles, in addition to direct transmission.The paths obtained by solving the optimization problem are analyzed using a realistic radio propagation path loss simulator. If the radio propagation path loss exceeds the maximum design criterion the optimization problem is solved again with a stricter communication constraint, and the procedure is continued in an iterative manner until the criterion is met. The proposed algorithm is supported by simulations showing the resulting paths and communication topologies for different choices of delay tolerance.

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Motion- and Communication-Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Delay Tolerant Network using Mixed-Integer Linear Programming

Grøtli

2016

MIC

“…by vehicle-based antenna arrays [5]. Networking matters of Small UAVsincluding usage scenarios and network architectures -has been described in [11]. Among others, problems of signal relying are also described in [20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unmanned aerial vehicle as communication relay for autonomous underwater vehicle — Field tests

2014 IEEE Globecom Workshops (GC Wkshps)

Zolich

Hansen

et al. 2014

Abstract-This paper describes field experiments with an X8 Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) operating as a wireless communication relay while loitering over a REMUS 100 Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) being at the ocean surface. The paper describes the design of the communication relay payload, network configuration, optimal flight conditions and UAV antenna mounting, and experimental results. Experiments were conducted under less than ideal conditions with rain and turbulent winds leading to unfavorable roll and pitch motions of the UAV, and small waves surrounding the AUV. The results with data download from the AUV through the UAV communication relay to a ground station shows that at the tested (typical) flight conditions the distance and attitude between the AUV and UAV are not the bottlenecks in the communication network. The main bottleneck was identified as the capacity of the proprietary wireless system on the REMUS 100 AUV which was not specified as a high capacity data link, and seems to be set up by the AUV system manufacturer to provide a relatively low capacity, but very robust, wireless data link regardless of signal strength and quality.

“…In such cases communication redundancy may be needed, and communication may need support from infrastructure such as satellites, cellular/mobile networks, dedicated relay nodes, or other cooperative networking strategies, e.g. [1], [3], [5]- [7]. For operations far from the coasts or in remote areas such as the arctic, the availability of such infrastructure might be very limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experiences with coastal and maritime UAS BLOS operation with phased-array antenna digital payload data link

Hovstein

Sægrov

2014 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS)

2014

Abstract-This paper describes recent experiences with operating an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in a coastal and maritime environment beyond line of sight (BLOS) in controlled airspace (class D) where separation from other air traffic is provided by the Air Traffic Control (ATC). The UAV operation followed normal ATC procedures with two-way VHF communication between the UAS Operator and ATC in order to provide separation vertically and horizontally by operation within pre-defined areas according to specific operational procedures made by ATC. Tests were conducted using direct 2.4 GHz radio and GPRS mobile network control links at a distance up to 20 km from the ground control station when operating at 1500 ft altitude. A new low-weight and small size experimental phased-array antenna providing a digital high capacity payload data link was tested and found to give stable real-time HD video at a distance of 50 km under line of sight conditions at 2500 ft altitude.Index Terms-Beyond line of sight; unmanned aerial vehicle; remotely piloted aircraft systems; air traffic control; phased array antenna; digital data link.