Real-time Intelligent Planning and Control System (RIPACS)

RIPACS will provide a novel capability for small UAVs, specifically Group 4 5 vehicles such as the MQ8 Fire Scout, extending their autonomy from pre mission planning through to landing. Being able to fly through a series of waypoints is a well established capability, but human operators are required to layout plans, update plans based on incoming data and react to contingencies. Requiring humans for all these tasks is not always operationally feasible nor cognitively reasonable when mission plans should be updated very quickly due rapidly changing situation and emergence of the threats. Moreover, often the UAV operators will (or should) have other critical tasks that are taking their attention away from control of the UAV – the data from the UAV might be critical to overall mission success, but details of its plan are not. Thus, full autonomy for Group 4 5 UAVs, from takeoff to landing is highly desirable, with human operators only providing supervisory control and input when their mission objectives change or when their interpretation of the situational data implies a change in the basic mission of the UAV. RIPACS will provide a framework for UAV autonomy and management for a complete mission, from takeoff to landing.