Autonomous Obstacle Avoidance for A Miniature Rotary Wing UAV

Research issues pertaining to the development of an obstacle avoidance system for a highly autonomous miniature rotary wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) performing the urban battlefield reconnaissance mission are proposed. The research objective is todevelop the obstacle avoidance technologies, including the overall system architecture, sensors and sensor data processing algorithms, obstacle avoidance rules, logic and computational algorithms, and autopilot structure including control laws andinterfaces with sensors and actuators. The research is facilitated by building on the results of extensive previous development in guidance systems for Nap-of-the-Earth (NOE) terrain following helicopters and our earlier efforts in autonomous flights offixed wing and rotary wing UAVs. NOE helicopters share the same requirements for detecting obstacles and planning and executing avoidance routes using a high agility autopilot. Options for sensors, sensor data processing, avoidance route planning, andautopilot algorithms are outlined. The result of this project will be candidate obstacle avoidance rule sets, autopilot algorithms, and sensor data characterizations to be evaluated in follow-on simulation effort with eventual implementation on a smallhelicopter during the Phase II of this SBIR effort. This research will facilitate the development of low cost man-portable UAVs for operation in cluttered urban environments, which can perform the reconnaissance mission with more speed and reduced personalrisk versus sending a human reconnaissance team. Commercial applications may include mapping of hazardous or unreachable areas and police reconnaissance.