OAV Repositioning Resource-Allocating Tracker (ORRATr)

The development of inexpensive unmanned aircraft will soon bring the opportunity to place persistent organic hovering sensors at key locations in support of intelligence gathering, targeting, and force protection missions. As many of the sensor packages flown on these assets will be line-of-sight dependent, careful platform placement will be crucial for sensor effectiveness. In order to assure good sensor placement without burdening the war fighter, fast automated techniques will be required to place sensors where they will be most effective and move them automatically when conditions change. Under this Phase II SBIR, ALPHATECH will build on its Phase I sensor location fitness algorithm to include static and dynamic placement strategies which will provide feasible dynamic routing solutions for hovering aircraft. These algorithms will be implemented in software within a test and demonstration environment which will permit the verification and quantification of algorithm performance, as well as visualization of system solutions. The resulting system will be appropriate for transition into a larger control package which includes tracking and management of the sensor time line.