Miniature Optical Guidance & Navigation

Centeye will develop a modular and reconfigurable vision-based system that will allow micro and nano air vehicles to operate autonomously in near-Earth environments without the use of GPS. The system will weigh between 1 and 12 grams, depending on the specific configuration. The system will support supervised autonomy, at flight speeds up to 10 meters/sec, in which a human operator provides high level control input and the UAV autonomously avoids obstacles while traveling in the desired direction. This capability will work in all light levels, from daylight to no light. We will also perform two full autonomy demonstrations. The first demonstration will be of a follow-me capability in which the UAV pursues a target while flying close to the ground and avoiding obstacles. The second demonstration will be of a building ingress/egress capability in which the UAV is first flown deep into a building by an operator, after which the UAV will autonomously retrace its path to the exit. This latter capability will involve the real-time creation of a limited topological map of the building over its flight path. Option efforts include the fabrication of a complete single-gram system and of a system designed for use in extremely photon-limited environments.