UAV Survivability Enhancement via Agile Maneuvering in Dynamic Environments

A significant challenge in the field of uninhabited air vehicles (UAVs), particularly micro air vehicles (MAVs), is that of navigating through a complex environment such as deep in the urban canyon or underneath a forest canopy. Such environments are filled with a variety of hazards, ranging from large buildings and trees to thin cables and potentially other threatening airborne objects. We propose an active perception system capable of sensing and avoiding the most difficult of these hazards. This system makes use of an optic flow microsensors, an "active perception unit" that interprets optic flow patterns to detect hazards, MEMS gyros, and a "control unit" that guides a UAV through trajectories creating useful optic flow patterns for perception. This system is intended to be used on fixed-wing micro air vehicles.