Hybrid Reconfigurable Fault Control System for Mixed Critical Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Systems (UAVS)

UAVS are successfully being used in a number of military applications. The use of UAVS is continuously increasing in military as well as civilian domain for applications such as border patrol, surveillance, fire-fighting, agriculture and so on. This increase in the growth of UAVS requires technologies that make them safer to use and robust to failures. The number of redundant system on board the UAVS is restricted due to their limited payload capacity. So, enabling technologies for the integrity management of mixed critical unmanned aerial vehicle systems is desired. UC proposes a two-tiered knowledge-based and model-based architecture for fault detection and diagnosis of the on-board sensors. To reduce the false alarm rates, the system is also tied to the mission objective. Finally, the algorithms developed will be demonstrated for an intruder collision detection and avoidance application. BENEFIT: UtopiaCompression"s (UC) system will greatly benefit the Department of Defense (DoD) by enabling UAS, especially small UAS, to operate in a wider region of the airspace as well as take on more challenging missions. Wider access to the airspace is needed for training, security and surveillance and in general to execute missions efficiently. Looking beyond the DoD market, the Department of Homeland Security will also benefit from this technology. They now use the Certificates of Authorization (COA) process to get limited airspace access, but this is not viewed as operationally sustainable, especially as DHS deploys UAS assets to more challenging venues such as the southwest border. There is a critical and immediate need for UC"s proposed technology in the broader commercial markets. All military and intelligence divisions within the government will immediately benefit from UC"s technology, as they increase automation efforts and integrate UAVs into their avionics programs. In reflection of this trend, the avionics systems sector is slated to grow significantly in the next few years. The military avionics market is slated to grow approximately 2.9% annually, according to market research analysts, Frost and Sullivan. This is expected to account for more than $10.9 billion in expenditures, more than half of which will be devoted to upgrades related to transitioning the vehicles into automated information platforms [J05] which will need to be proven airworthy. The technology proposed by UC also enables critical automation capabilities needed by agencies including the FAA, DHS, Border Patrol, NASA and others to meet their missions. In the past year almost a million flights were delayed in the US [CP07]. Within the next 8 years the increasing congestion of the commercial airports will cost the American economy $22 billion a year [CP07]. UC"s proposed technology could be applied to both manned and unmanned control systems to enable 4D trajectory prediction which would decrease congestion and increase commercial TAO safety and efficiency. In particular, UC"s technology will be of applicability to the Next Generation Air Transportation System (NextGen) planned by the FAA. Approximately $44 billion are expected to be spent on this system [CP07]. In addition a boom in civil aviation communications and automation spending is expected by the end of this decade, creating an attractive market opportunity for the proposed technology. Applications of the proposed technology include increased evaluation capability of integration effects of UAVs into the National Airspace System. The proposed technology will also greatly benefit the NextGen-Airspace project.