ROBUST MOVING TARGET HANDOFF IN GPS-DENIED ENVIRONMENTS

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are increasingly seen as a cornerstone in developing the future Defense infrastructure and it is critical that they collaborate efficiently and execute complex missions in denied environments. Although great progress has been made in GPS-denied navigation, the target handoff problem in GPS-denied environments has not been extensively studied. In this problem, a tracking UAS is tracking a ground target in a GPS-denied environment and a handoff UAS needs to acquire the same target in its sensor without using any GPS signals. In Phase I, we focused our efforts on developing a multi-sensor approach to the handoff problem, where different sensors are used to enable relative pose estimation between the two UAS. We successfully demonstrated the feasibility of the relative pose estimation using different sensors in a simulated environment. We also conducted preliminary experiments that validated the proposed sensor technologies.In the Phase II, we will focus our efforts on maturing the proposed sensor technologies and algorithms and validating them in simulations and using collected flight test data. In addition, we will perform system integration and prepare for flight tests and demonstrations in collaboration with AFRL.