Robust Autonomous Maneuvering of Unmanned Air Systems in Challenging Environmental/Weather Conditions for Safety, Mission Effectiveness, and Endurance

Area-I, Incorporated, and Pennsylvania State University will combine an innovative real-time technique for estimating local airmass motion, a multi-objective guidance strategy, and a state-of-the-art adaptive control architecture to develop a Reactive Controller for Harvesting Gust Energy (RECHARGE). The RECHARGE system will utilize a compact yet capable suite of sensors and flight-proven computing hardware to enhance small UAV range, endurance, and survivability, even in extremely gusty conditions. Core features and capabilities of the RECHARGE system will include: 1) Real-time, on-board, local airmass motion estimation that is robust to changing gust characteristics and changing vehicle dynamics, 2) Waypoint following to enable intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) or other primary missions, 3) Optimal guidance for extracting energy from gusty environments to increase range and endurance, 4) Gust load alleviation for enhanced survivability in volatile atmospheric conditions, 5) Adaptive flight control that provides guaranteed Lyapunov stability, even with changes to vehicle dynamics or operations in highly uncertain environments, and 6) Ease of portability to different vehicle types and configurations.