The new Scout B-330 UAV in front of the Swiss Alps.
Swiss-based Aeroscout, a long-term partner of lidar manufacturer Riegl, has unveiled the Scout B-330 UAV helicopter.
The Scout B-330 is built with a payload capacity of up to 50 kg. (110 lbs), flight endurance of at least three hours, and the capability of flying at high altitudes (up to 3,000 meters above sea level) in a typical mission scenario. This includes a full autonomous take-off sequence, a mission flight at variable speed and a landing sequence.
The Scout B-330 is specifically designed for lidar-based powerline mapping missions. According to Aeroscout, it sets a benchmark in the long-endurance UAV class with its combination of flexibility, Swiss quality and competitive pricing.
“After one year of intense development, we are very excited to introduce our new Scout UAV system to the public,” said Christoph Eck, Aeroscout founder and CEO. “The reactions here at AUVSI are extremely positive and encouraging, we are very motivated for the serial production out of the system.”
The Scout B-330 pairs with Riegl airborne and unmanned lidar sensors such as the Riegl VP-1 Helicopter Pod, the Riegl VUX-1UAV lightweight UAV laser scanner and the Riegl VUX-1LR lightweight, long-range airborne laser scanner.
The B-330 was introduced at the AUVSI Xponential show held in Dallas in May. Those who missed that show can see it at the Commercial UAV Show in Las Vegas this October.
Detection of artillery blasts at a near distance (0.15 miles or 0.24 km) using a single infrasound sensor, with the sensor amplitude trace over time shown on Infiltec’s Amaseis software data and visualization package, and using some basic bandpass filtering (5 to 25 Hz). The spikes are clearly visible as high amplitude impulses in the traces, confirming sensor detection.
Infrasound refers to sound frequencies below the threshold of human hearing, around 20 Hz or less. There are a variety of natural sources of infrasonic emissions, including thunderstorms, avalanches, meteors, earthquakes, volcanos, and windstorms as well as manmade sources of emissions, such as aircraft, heavy machinery, artillery, missile testing and road traffic. Infrasound is especially attractive from a sensing perspective due to its ability to propagate long distances while suffering little from atmospheric or environmental attenuation.
Blasts detected at 5.22 miles (or 8.4 km) are still detectable, but additional signal processing or wind-filtering techniques may make these impulsive signals more prominent above the noise.
In this work, we describe the development of a man-portable “tactical” infrasound field sensor array that is small, lightweight and can be rapidly set-up and torn-down as needed. The system is able to provide direction-finding capabilities to infrasound impulse sources with a directional accuracy of +/–3 degrees. Such information could be used for alternative positioning schemes, described in detail, or perhaps for direction-finding (homing) to acoustic sources of interest. Possible users could be military or search-and-rescue teams operating in GPS-denied environments; field researchers studying volcanology or seismology; or other geo-acoustic scientists and engineers.
Taoglas, a provider of Internet of Things (IoT) and GNSS antenna products, has released two new GPS certification testing services for Google and its device partners. The services are required for devices to meet Google’s new Street View auto-ready standard.
Auto-ready certification distinguishes 360-degree cameras that deliver accurately positioned 360 video, even at high speeds. Taoglas worked with Google to develop the performance requirements, as well as the test methodology used to establish a basic minimum level of GPS receiver performance.
The services are available at any of Taoglas’ design centers and labs in the United States, Ireland, Germany and Taiwan.
Compact wireless devices such as digital cameras with built-in GPS receiver systems contain complex electronic systems that can emit unwanted RF signals that can impact radio receiver performance. The effect of this RF noise can be combated with critical design decisions like the antenna, low noise amplifier, filters, and transmission line choice and implementation.
Taoglas’ new services will help device manufacturers objectively measure real-world performance to understand any GPS performance issues with their products. With this information, product manufacturers will know if their performance is optimized and will meet or exceed user expectation for the application at hand, as well as how it compares with their competitors.
“Google Street View provides people with a 360-degree view of the world, and to enable these services, we require highly accurate location data,” said Charles Armstrong, product manager at Google. “By working with Taoglas to establish a standardized compliance process, we’re helping device manufacturers understand our requirements for GPS performance and quickly deliver products that match and exceed those high performance standards.”
Taoglas is offering two levels of certification testing:
Street View Auto-Ready Conformance Testing (GSA.31) provides a quick verification of minimum performance (in a pass/fail manner) required to achieve Street View certification. Taoglas uses its GPS constellation simulator and anechoic chamber to verify that radiated tracking and acquisition sensitivity meet a minimum performance standard at 15-degree intervals in one hemisphere.
From these test results, manufacturers will be able to clearly see if the device’s GPS is performing adequately for basic location capabilities. The condensed period needed to run this test provides device manufacturers the best value to answer the question, “Is the GPS working optimally?”
A street view image of Guatemala. (Credit: Google)
Street View Auto-Ready Performance Testing (GSA.32) provides an absolute level of testing to assess the GPS receiver performance according to the optional Google Street View Assessment test procedures.
Taoglas uses its GPS constellation simulator and anechoic chamber to measure radiated tracking and acquisition sensitivity at 15-degree intervals in one hemisphere. These optional tests provide more insight into how well a device performs, providing absolute receive sensitivity performance data.
Testing results for both services include suggestions on next steps to resolve identified issues.
“This partnership with Google to deliver GPS testing solutions for Google Street View compliance is an excellent example of how we’re working successfully with the world’s biggest companies to delivering high-quality, reliable antenna solutions,” said Dermot O’Shea, co-CEO of Taoglas. “By certifying their products through Taoglas, device manufacturers will also be able to take advantage of Taoglas’ deep RF expertise, achieving success quickly and reducing time to market.”
“Street view” of the Ambrym Volcano, Vanuatu. (Credit: Google)
Telit has introduced an ultra-slim family of smart antenna GNSS receiver modules. The fully integrated modules include a comprehensive feature set that eliminates the need for additional components. They are designed for Internet of Things (IoT) projects with size, cost and time constraints.
Easing the burden for developers with little or no RF design experience, the SL876Q5-A is compliant with regulatory and industry standards specifications. The module combines an omni-directional low profile embedded antenna and an internal RF switch. This combination is suitable for applications needing two antennas, such as personal trackers and alarms, which must be equipped with a main and a backup antenna when the signal becomes compromised.
A turnkey solution, the SL876Q5-A includes features such as an additional low noise amplifier (LNA), surface acoustic wave filter and efficient power management technology in an ultra-slim leadless chip carrier (LCC) package.
The inclusion of several low-power modes reduces total power consumption while maintaining position accuracy, which extends battery life — a critical requirement for wearables, personal trackers, and other battery-dependent applications.
“The SL876Q5-A delivers on everything our customers and partners have come to expect from the industry’s leading IoT solutions provider,” said Ronen Ben-Hamou, Telit’s EVP of products and solutions. “IoT developers continuously search for solutions that simplify the design process. We’ve developed a compact solution with features that deliver industry-leading performance without compromising performance. Not only does the SL876Q5-A eliminate the need for additional components in most use cases, but also cuts development time and costs considerably.”
SL876Q5-A Features
Full GNSS for exceptional coverage:
Quad-GNSS: GPS/ QZSS and GLONASS or BeiDou and it is Galileo ready
A-GNSS: Onboard generation and server-generated file injection that can be stored into the embedded flash memory
Omni-directional antenna design delivers high performance in sensitivity, tracking performance and accuracy
MEMS wakeup feature offers lowest power consumption
Built-in LNA for improved sensitivity
Primary port: UART, I2C, or SPI. Secondary port: UART or I2C, I2C supports MEMS wakeup only
Embedded RF switch allows easy integration with external antennas
Ultra-slim design, 11 x 11.9 x 2.3 mm LCC package for space constrained devices
Flash memory enables firmware upgrades, customization, and AGPS file storage, which is ideal for battery-dependent devices
Availability begins in the second quarter of 2017. Learn more about the new SL876Q5-A slim antenna module.
Icaros Inc., a provider of aerial imaging software, has released version 5.0 of OneButton Standard and Professional image-processing software for unmanned aerial systems. The 5.0 release contains a significant number of major new features and hundreds of other improvements, including a new 2D and 3D map and model viewer.
Icaros developed the OneButton family for geospatial end users to easily and automatically generate precise, fully orthorectified 2D maps and 3D models from frame-based aerial imaging systems. Originally engineered for manned aircraft sensors, the OneButton software has been modified to accommodate the unique collection conditions of unmanned aerial systems (UAS).
OneButton is application platform and sensor agnostic, and processes raster image data from small-, medium- and large-format frame sensors capable of capturing visible RBG, multispectral, near-infrared and thermal infrared data.
New features and capabilities in version 5.0:
Provides both traditional and true orthomosaics
Maintain original pixel values for multi-spectral and thermal analysis(traditional)
Creates composite imagery for urban areas and tall structures(true)
Provides new viewer capabilities:
View 2D and 3D outputs such as orthomosaics, point clouds, and photo meshes
Create fly-through videos
Generate contour lines from GeoTiff terrain models
Label features and control the appearance of you maps and models
Add other georeferenced data as layers for reference
Scalable
No restrictions on image size and project size
Checkpoint restart
High performance / processing speed
Other additional improvements include:
Support for all the major sensors (multispectral, thermal),
All industry standard output formats (e.g., big TIFF)
Higher levels of ASPRS accuracy
Higher quality of feature extraction
In release 5.0, the Professional Edition is now much easier to use. Professional Edition extends the Standard Edition with quality enhancement tools for more refined, professional results. It includes an innovative and easy-to-use photogrammetric dashboard giving you fine tuning control over the photogrammetric process. Other tools in the Professional Edition let users enhance output results.
“We have worked with many UAS image processing products, and OneButton sets a high standard. The Professional Edition is easy to use and provides many of the advanced photogrammetric options essential for producing the high-quality, accurate results that customers expect from AeroVironment,” said Seth Merickel, Senior Software Engineer at AeroVironment.
Current users of OneButton Standard and Professional editions can download and install the latest version. New OneButton software clients qualify for a free 30-day trial available at the following links:
OneButton creates a complete image processing workflow for aerial image data and can front-end both GIS and analytics workflows to enable customers to solve challenging problems related to everything from agriculture and forestry to utilities and city planning. It is highly customizable to meet the needs of specific vertical market applications.
OneButton automatically processes raw raster imagery with onboard GPS/IMU data to stitch the individual scenes together into seamless, color-balanced orthomosaics meeting photogrammetric precision and quality standards. Outputs include digital elevation models (DEMs), true color 3D point clouds, and multispectral mosaics — all ready for ingestion directly into GIS and analytics software environments.
STMicroelectronics, a global semiconductor company for electronics applications, is working with Allystar to develop and market GNSS solutions for automotive products and other applications. Allystar is a spin-off from CEC Huada Electronic Design Co. Ltd. and a Chinese GNSS chip designer.
GNSS solutions and technologies, including China’s BeiDou navigation system, are playing an ever-increasing role in many different domains, related to smart mobility. Specifically, enhanced-precision location technology enabled by multi-constellation GNSS solutions, in combination with radars, cameras and various sensors, will be a key enabler for autonomous cars.
ST and Allystar are already co-marketing products for the automotive market and cost-competitive products for the consumer market.
“GNSS positioning technologies are vital for a variety of services and applications and will be one of the key building blocks for autonomous-driving solutions,” said Marco Monti, executive vice president and general manager, Automotive and Discrete Group, STMicroelectronics. “Working closely with Allystar, the Chinese leader in GNSS/BeiDou solutions, allows ST to better address the enormous positioning market of China and Asia.”
Allystar is the first Chinese company ranked in the international top 10 of GNSS chips, and has won many important prizes and awards in China recognizing its R&D excellence and innovation capability, according to a press release by ST.
Inertial Sense will be releasing a high-quality, low-cost navigation system — the μINS — later this summer, the company said. The company made the announcement at AUVSI’s Xponential 2017.
Inertial Sense is a privately owned U.S. company that specializes in designing and manufacturing GPS inertial navigation technology for commercial and consumer products.
Historically, quality GPS inertial navigation has been expensive and was only designed into a small number of systems. As the commercial and consumer drone industries grow, the need for an accurate, low-cost navigation system has become more apparent, Inertial Sense said.
Acccording to Inertial Sense, the company’s engineers have invented a design that enables the technology to be smaller and less expensive.
The μINS is a tiny sensor module that is designed to provide high-quality direction, position and velocity data for drones and robotic applications. It provides this data by fusing sensor data from GPS (GNSS), gyros, accelerometers, magnetometers and a barometric pressure sensor.
IBM’s inventors have been granted a patent for transferring packages between drones during flight.
The invention, described in U.S. Patent No. 9,561,852: In flight transfer of packages between aerial drones, helps to extend the range of drones that are delivering packages from a warehouse to a customer’s home.
IBM inventors developed this patented system using their supply chain expertise to enable precise delivery services to customers using drones.
Drones are starting to be used to transport packages to customer locations, but there are still numerous challenges to this delivery method such as limited flight range, theft of unattended packages once delivered, and a lack of delivery network optimization.
The invention can help to mitigate these challenges by providing in-flight drone-to-drone package transfers to extend package delivery range.
For example, a customer expecting a package could dispatch a personal drone to receive and securely deliver the package to the customer’s home. Drone delivery network optimization could be provided to autonomous drones via the communications link described in the patent.
“Drones have the potential to change the way businesses operate and by leveraging machine learning, drones could change ecommerce,” said Sarbajit Rakshit, IBM master inventor and co-inventor on the patent. “Our inventor team is focused on improving how the most valuable cargo is delivered globally. This could create opportunities such as managing drones to deliver postal packages and medicine in developing countries via the most direct route.”
IBM inventors have patented other inventions related to drones and drone-enabling technologies. However, this is just one aspect of IBM’s Supply Chain and Logistics expertise. IBM manages supply chains for clients on a worldwide basis using IBM Watson Supply Chain. Learn more about IBM patents here.
Grand Sky Airfield Operations, a 217-acre UAS test facility in North Dakota, has selected Harris Corporation to provide an advanced solution to support beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) unmanned aerial systems (UAS) flight operations, reducing the need for chase planes to provide constant visual surveillance during flight. Grand Sky tenants will have the ability to conduct BVLOS UAS flights, enabling commercial and government operators to deploy their technologies, test and conduct operations. The announcement was made during AUVSI’s Xponential.
Harris will provide a customized RangeVue sense-and-avoid solution that delivers real-time situational awareness of surrounding unmanned and manned aircraft traffic, with multi-sensor surveillance for cooperative and non-cooperative vehicles. airspace situational awareness tool designed specifically for test-range operations for unmanned air systems (UAS). RangeVue puts real-time NextGen surveillance data, obstacle data, flexible background maps and weather information in the hands of the people who are actually in the field testing and validating UAS missions. The solution will cover the 217-acre unmanned aircraft business and aviation park located on Grand Forks Air Force Base, North Dakota.
It will enhance Grand Sky’s infrastructure for safe and efficient BVLOS UAS operations and testing, ensuring the FAA’s stringent safety requirements are met and eliminating the need for expensive chase planes to track UAS entering, exiting or operating within Grand Sky’s 60 nautical-mile radius airspace.
Harris’ Grand Sky solution will combine available surveillance sources — including Grand Forks AFB’s radar feed, locally installed ADS-B Xtend and FAA NextGen surveillance data — into a single stream that offers area coverage and airspace visualization for drone operators. Xtend supplements the FAA’s existing ADS-B nationwide network operated by Harris, which provides precise and reliable satellite-based surveillance for the nation’s air traffic control system.
As UAS operations become more complex and are increasingly used for both commercial and recreational purposes, UAS traffic management systems, or UTM, are necessary to seamlessly integrate UAS into the airspace and existing air traffic management systems. ICAO will solicit proposals for a global framework for UTM ahead of its Drone Enable UAS Industry Symposium, which will take place in Montreal, Canada in September.
“ICAO is the natural agency to be gathering together the best and brightest from governments and industry to define the problem so that global solutions can be proposed, debated and agreed,” said Leslie Cary, remotely piloted aircraft systems program manager at ICAO.
An operational UTM will ensure the safe and efficient use of the airspace as UAS operations become more complex, such as with established navigation routes and point-to-point route segments requiring specific equipage requirements. UTM will integrate UAS into the existing airspace infrastructure to ensure the continued safety of the airspace.
“Collaboration between stakeholders is key to addressing complex issues such as UTM,” added Brian Wynne, president and CEO of AUVSI. “AUVSI is pleased ICAO is taking steps to explore solutions for UTM that will allow companies to operate globally under the same standards, reducing barriers to innovation and improving safety and security for all aircraft – both manned and unmanned. We look forward to working with ICAO to draw awareness and facilitate industry engagement in the RFI process.”
Septentrio has launched two new GNSS boards. The AsteRx-m2 and AsteRx-m2 UAS OEM boards provide GNSS positioning with interference mitigation technology on ultra-low-power boards. The boards are being showcased at AUVSI’s Xponential 2017 this week in Dallas, Texas.
AsteRx-m2.
The credit-card sized AsteRx-m2 and the AsteRx-m2 UAS offer all-in-view multi-frequency, multi-constellation tracking and centimeter-level real-time kinematic (RTK) position accuracy for low power. Both boards can receive TerraStar satellite-based correction signals for precise point positioning (PPP).
The AsteRx-m2 and the AsteRx-m2 UAS feature Septentrio’s AIM+ interference mitigation system: an on-board interference mitigation technology that can suppress a wide variety of interferers, from simple continuous narrowband signals to complex wideband and pulsed jammers. The increasing levels of radio frequency pollution — coupled with the intrinsic danger of self-interference in compact systems such as UAS — makes interference mitigation a vital element in any UAS GNSS system, Septentrio said.
AsteRx-m2 UAS receiver.
The AsteRx-m2 UAS is designed specifically for unmanned systems. It provides plug-and-play compatibility for autopilot software such as ArduPilot and Pixhawk. Event markers can accurately synchronize a camera shutter with GNSS time.
The board can be directly powered from the vehicle power bus via its wide-range power input. The AsteRx-m2 UAS works seamlessly with GeoTagZ software and its SDK library for RPK (reprocessed kinematic) offline processing to provide RTK accuracy without the need for ground-control points or a real-time datalink.
“The market demands increasingly accurate and reliable GNSS positioning systems for inspection, mapping and aerial survey,” said Gustavo Lopez, product manager at Septentrio. “Septentrio’s answer is the AsteRx-m2 and the AsteRx-m2 UAS: offering multi-frequency and multi-constellation tracking as well as robust interference protection all for the lowest power on the market.”
The AsteRx-m2 and AsteRx-m2 UAS are now shipping. Septentrio is located at stand 749 of Xponential 2017.
