Skycatch is offering new data-capture capabilities for the DJI Matrice 300 through its proprietary Flight1x software — a key component of the company’s High Precision Package.
The High Precision Package provides mining operations with cloud or edge-based data processing that enables viewing terrain in 4D, automated RTK/PPK industrial drone management, and fast edge processing with data visibility in minutes.
Built on technology adopted by companies Komatsu Mining and AngloAmerican, Flight1x outperforms traditional off-the-shelf data mapping tools by including purpose-built flight automation software for the M300, leveraging DJI’s L1 and P1 sensors.
The solution delivers data and network security via Skycatch servers in the United States, coupled with advanced automation features like a 3D first-mission planner, mining-focused workflows and deep integration into Skycatch’s data analytics platform Datahub.
The Flight1x software will work with the M300 to help mining engineers quickly extract data. Features include:
fully automated capture, extraction and processing of high-precision 3D point clouds
highly specialized mission-planning automation to extract data from complex terrains such as high walls
complete industrial data capture and processing for repeatable and automated spot inspection
consistent data-retrieval analysis of thousands of terrain spots in a single location by an automated industrial drone
fully automated aerial robot technology built on Skycatch’s automation platform, eliminating the need for manual pilots and reducing risk of human error.
Wingcopter drones recently transported blood samples 26 kilometers (16 miles) between Greifswald and Wolgast, Germany. The flights were carried out by Greifswald University Medical Center in cooperation with DRF Luftrettung and Wingcopter as part of the MV|LIFE|DRONE Challenge (MVLD-Challenge) project of the hospital’s Department of Anesthesiology.
The project, funded by the German Federal Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Energy, Infrastructure and Digitalization of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania, is a partnership between University Medical Center Greifswald and DRF Luftrettung. The goal of the project is to improve structures of regional emergency care by integrating unmanned aerial vehicles (UAS, Unmanned Aerial Systems) into the rescue chain and into medical emergency transports.
The flights beyond the pilots’ visual line of sight (BVLOS) carried a pneumatic tube including 250 grams of blood samples. The Wingcopter completed the 26-kilometer route in an average of 18 minutes, nearly twice as fast as ground-based transport.
The use of Wingcopter drones could significantly speed up emergency medical care in rural areas and help save lives. In the event of a blood transfusion being necessary at short notice, for example, blood samples from Wolgast District Hospital must be transported to Greifswald University Hospital for analysis in order to determine the appropriate donor blood.
“With this project, we have demonstrated that we can also improve medical care and quality of life in rural areas in Germany,” said Ansgar Kadura, co-founder and CSO of Wingcopter. “With our new unmanned aerial vehicle, the Wingcopter 198, this can be carried out even more efficiently in the future. We look forward to continued collaboration with the project team at the Department of Anesthesiology as part of the MV|LIFE|DRONE Challenge and beyond.”
The Greifswald University Medical Center seeks to establish permanent flight connections between the medical center in Greifswald and hospitals in the surrounding area as soon as possible. Drones can also be used to support first responders on site by quickly transporting medications, transfusions or emergency medical equipment such as defibrillators to the scene of an accident.
A Canadian drone pilot flies a UAV over a field. (Photo: Onfokus/iStock/Getty Images Plus/Getty Images)
360iSR and Canadian UAVs have agreed to jointly offer comprehensive unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations training on the market globally.
The joint training offering leverages the partnership’s detect-and-avoid technology, which is available for multiple platforms and approved by Transport Canada, a branch of the Canadian government. The center will provide end-to-end UAS training solutions in alignment with NATO Standard ATP-3.3.8.1 requirements.
The initiative will provide access to comprehensive UAS operations training in these areas:
operational airworthiness
airmanship
general UAS information
detect-and-avoid systems and procedures
the integration of UAS in non-segregated airspace
intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) procedures.
Canadian UAVs is a Transport Canada registered training company with a proven track record providing UAV training to the Department of National Defense. The company has highly qualified UAS personnel who hold Transport Canada Advanced small RPAS Pilot Certificates (including those with Flight Reviewer ratings) and is authorized to provide beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) UAS Operations Training at Foremost UAS Test Range in Foremost, Alberta, Canada.
360iSR offers end-to-end ISR support with an experienced team to deliver all aspects of ISR. 360iSR has worked on projects ranging from counter-poaching in Southern Africa to large-scale security events such as the London Olympic Games.
Applanix, a Trimble Company, has introduced new term licenses with full maintenance and support for its desktop post-processing software — POSPac Mobile Mapping Suite (POSPac MMS) and POSPac Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (POSPac UAV).
In addition, a new subscription for POSPac PP-RTX for UAV is also available.
The new licensing options lower the upfront investments required and enable customers to always have the newest features with updates included as part of the bundled maintenance and support.
The announcement was made at Intergeo 2021, a conference on geodesy, geoinformatics and land management, which took place this week in Hannover, Germany.
“The new licensing options for POSPac MMS and POSPac UAV provide our customers with maximum flexibility for acquiring full access to our industry-leading post-processing solutions. The options offer lower upfront initial investments and provide customers with full access to future releases and 24/7 customer support, as part of the included maintenance in the license agreements,” said Joe Hutton, Applanix’s Director of Inertial Technology and Airborne Products.
The new POSPac PP-RTX for UAV subscription is available with varying term lengths to accommodate user requirements. POSPac PP-RTX enables quick and easy data processing without a base station. The correction data is available within minutes after mission completion and requires a single button click in POSPac to launch. Customers will be able to process up to 30 minutes of dynamic data from the UAV platform.
The new licensing options and subscriptions are available now through the Applanix global sales channels.
A roundup of recent products in the GNSS and inertial positioning industry from the September 2021 issue of GPS World magazine.
OEM
Network Expansion
Provides precision timing over fiber
Photo: Huber+Suhner
Direct GPS-over-Fiber is a copper-free GNSS remote antenna that eliminates the need for costly power infrastructure. It uses power-over-fiber technology to distribute both the timing signal and power for the remote device. It is designed for telecommunication and data-center customers in need of scalable timing infrastructure solutions for outdoor remote antenna applications. It is fast and easy to install, with flexible, space-saving configurations that eliminate the need for power infrastructure at the remote end. The product makes network expansion achievable with a compact design and integrated transmitters, eliminating the need for multiple GPS antennas and maximizing the available space. It also extends the signal range between the antenna and the receiver.
The cost-effective EdgeSync network timing platform provides NTP and PTP grandmaster and boundary clock functionality for real-time edge applications. High performance, scalability, ease of use and manageability make EdgeSync suitable for data centers, finance, mobile edge computing, enterprise, smart grid, industrial IoT, process control and telecommunications. EdgeSync uses a multi-GNSS receiver (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou and QZSS), PTP and Synchronous Ethernet as input references and generates PTP, SyncE, NTP and timing signals (10 MHz, 1 PPS and Time of Day message) as outputs. It also can provide IEEE 1588-2008 (PTP) grandmaster and boundary clock functionality and leverages unique PTP algorithms to deliver stringent timing for demanding, precise applications.
The P-1750 IMU and the P-1725 IMU complement the previously released P-1775 IMU to create a full line of IMUs with high-performance accelerometers and photonic integrated chip (PIC) technology. The P-series IMUs are offered in the same compact IMU housing design, and now offer more dynamic and accurate sensor performance, delivering improved navigation capability and more environmental robustness in vibration and shock capability for more challenging applications. PIC technology features an integrated planar optical chip that replaces individual fiber-optic components to simplify production and increase reliability. The accelerometers used in the P-series IMUs offer greater sensitivity and accuracy in their dynamic ranges. The IMUs are designed for challenging applications on land, sea and air, including autonomous trucks and people movers, drones, autonomous underwater vehicles and platform stabilization. Industries include transportation, military, agriculture, construction and mining.
The HC860 and HC860E active GNSS/Iridium antennas are designed for precise positioning, covering the GPS/QZSS-L1/L2, GLONASS-G1/G2, Galileo-E1 and BeiDou-B1 bands, including regional SBAS. The antennas also support active Iridium reception in the 1616.0-1626.5 MHz band. The HC860 housed and HC860E embedded helical antennas are designed for high-accuracy positioning. They are packaged in a light, compact form factor suitable for a variety of applications, including autonomous vehicle navigation (land, sea and air), handheld survey devices, automotive positioning, timing and other precise-positioning applications.
The Panasonic Toughbook G2 is a fully rugged 2-in-1 detachable tablet with optional keyboard that features an innovative modular design and user-removable expansion packs (xPAKs). With three modular expansion areas and up to 36 xPAK combinations, users can customize the Toughbook G2 to suit their needs with options including a 4G LTE-A multi-carrier with GPS or a dedicated U-blox NEO M8N receiver. The device is backward compatible with most Toughbook 20 and G1 docks. It has a 10.1-inch display, an Intel Core i5 and i7 vPro processor and runs on Windows 10 Pro. It has an 18.5-hour battery life. The 2-in-1 detachable design allows users to operate the device both in laptop and tablet modes.
The WASSP S3r multibeam sounder combines data from a multibeam sounder transducer with 224 beams covering a 120° swath port to starboard along with position, heading and motion to create an accurate survey situations and environmental conditions. WASSP S3r is able to survey areas up to 10 times faster than a single-beam sounder. The S3r uses an SBG Ellipse-D Inertial Navigation System for its RTK + INS. The Ellipse-D allows the sounder to create accurately positioned 3D bathymetric representations of the seafloor, down to centimeter accuracy with minimal passes. WASSP has also incorporated the Ellipse-D into its S3Pr portable survey package. The SBG Ellipse-D was able to fit into a covered housing that allows quick setup on small vessels and interface with the WASSP DRX processing unit and CDX software. Ellipse-D integrates a dual-antenna, multi-band GNSS receiver, and is capable of delivering precise heading as well as centimeter-level position accuracy in challenging GNSS conditions.
Voyage is a plug-and-play lidar perception system that delivers highly accurate object detection, tracking and classification capabilities. The deployment kit is equipped with SENSR2 software, lidar sensors and a lidar processing unit. Voyage provides volumetric profiling and motion-prediction capabilities, regardless of lighting conditions, and can collect and process data from up to four sensors for insights across the sensor coverage zones. Voyage does not capture, show or store any biometric and otherwise identifying data to maximize the protection of people’s privacy when installed as part of smart-city and security systems. The company’s sensor-agnostic perception software is available worldwide and is deployed by top-tier organizations such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz, the Chattanooga Department of Transportation and Emart, among others.
The TinySurveyor is a high-precision instrument for the surveying and infrastructure industries, able to execute large tasks up to 10 times faster than traditional methods. The machine pairs with a GNSS receiver to accomplish large-scale stake-outs, road pre-marking, as-built surveys and topographic surveys. Its ability to mark out existing data or collect new data at high speed and with high accuracy makes the TinySurveyor suitable for repetitive, time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks. With a GNSS receiver, repeatable results ensure accuracy of 1-2 cm. The TinySurveyor integrates with any GNSS receiver and has been tested with units from Topcon, Trimble and Leica.
Maptitude for Redistricting 2021 is a specialized tool for political redistricting that enables state legislatures, political and public interest groups, local governments and private citizens to create and advocate redistricting plans that meet their goals, adhere to legal requirements, and stand up to public scrutiny and legal challenges. Unlike a general-purpose GIS, Maptitude for Redistricting streamlines the plan creation process for all types of political boundary definitions and provides all of the calculations and reports needed. It is suitable for congressional redistricting as well as state legislative districts, city councils and local school board districts.
With the Luciad 2021 platform, defense, aviation, maritime and other organizations can develop effective and reliable web applications. LuciadFusion, an all-in-one server solution for geospatial data management, has two new types of data streaming, resulting in faster streaming of imagery and point cloud data. LuciadRIA supports Web Assembly to bring desktop-like calculations to the browser. Luciad 2021 also features enhancements to software development kits for desktop and on-board vehicle applications. LuciadLightspeed seamlessly integrates into JavaFX-based applications, making it easier to embed its map components into user interfaces, and now provides for high-resolution map printing. LuciadCPillar, an API for C++ and C# developers, was updated with labeling support and other new features.
The Ping200XR integrates the capability of the Ping200X TSO Certified Mode S ADS-B OUT transponder with the high-integrity truFYX TSO-certified GPS position source into a single enclosure. The integration simplifies installation and allows the customer to choose between the installed GPS antenna or one provided with the Ping200XR. The integrated GPS ensures maximum safety by providing Source Integrity Level (SIL) 3 RTCA DO-229D and TSO-C145e Class Beta 1 performance, a requirement for Mode S and ADS-B airspace access, and for reception and processing by certified avionics and traffic collision avoidance systems in other aircraft as well as air traffic control. SIL 3 performance is not available from non-aviation certified GPS receivers, which often are used as an autopilot navigation source.
The RTL-450 lidar sensor incorporates a lightweight MEMS mirror and a precision navigation system to generate accurate data for demanding aerial surveying missions. The high-resolution, three-dimensional point clouds it creates enables operators to conduct advanced analytics of geographic and manmade features. Made in the United States, the RTL-450 incorporates patented lidar sensor technology. It weighs just over 4 pounds and is designed to operate independently of a drone platform, providing great flexibility for drone integration. Its modular design facilitates quick, efficient integration onto user-selected platforms.
The RIEGL VUX-240 is a lightweight airborne laser scanner, especially designed for use on UAS/UAV/RPAS and small manned airplanes or helicopters. With its wide field of view of 75° and a data acquisition rate of up to 1.8 MHz, the instrument is suitable for high-point-density corridor mapping applications. The VUX-240 uses Riegl’s Waveform-Lidar technology, allowing echo digitization and online waveform processing. Multi-target resolution is the basis for penetrating even dense foliage. A continuously rotating polygon mirror wheel enables scan speeds of up to 400 lines per second, for efficiently covering large areas when operated from fast UAVs or aircrafts. The scanner stores 1 terabyte of data internally and is equipped with interfaces for an external IMU/GNSS system to control up to four external cameras.
The Carrier H6 Hybrid is a heavy-lift gas-electric hybrid drone powered by either the H2400 (Carrier H6 HE+) or H5000 (Carrier H6 HL) hybrid drone generator. The Carrier H6 Hybrid HE+ is equipped with the H2400 generator providing 2400W of continuous power. The recommended payload is 4 kg allowing for up to 2.5 hours of flight. The maximum payload of 6 kg allows up to 1.5 hours of flight. The Carrier H6 Hybrid HL has a maximum payload capacity of 15 kg and can be configured to carry more robust scientific-grade sensors, such as multispectral cameras, professional DSLRs for cinematography and lidar. The H6 Hybrid HL also can be used in heavy-lift applications involving asset transportation and delivery, agricultural spraying and search and rescue.
Harris Aerial, harrisaerial.com
Industrial drone system
Autonomous ops from a dock
Photo: PowerVision
The PowerVision True Unmanned Aerial System combines the PowerEgg X 8K drone, PowerEgg Dock and the PowerVision Cloud web-based software platform. The integration provides a turnkey solution for remote, autonomous data-collection missions. With the system, drones can be deployed at scale as data-acquisition infrastructure, instead of tools to be operated on individual missions. Powered by artificial intelligence, the system streamlines the drone’s takeoff, flight, dynamic mission and return to the charging dock autonomously. The system weighs 34.8 pounds (15.8 kg) in a 570 x 400 x 250-millimeter form factor, allowing it to be deployed by a single person without special tools or equipment. The solution can be used for powerline inspections, environmental compliance, asset inspection, facility security, GIS, surveying and mapping.
The StarCourse service provides real-time extended ephemeris data for GNSS chipsets in connected mobile devices, giving them a headstart in determining position accurately and quickly. For devices with limited connectivity, typical extended ephemeris solutions have provided a headstart with 7¬–14 days of ephemeris data. StarCourse provides a 50% reduction in RAM requirements, 90% reduction in CPU cycles, and high location accuracy. Full data customization is provided to StarCourse subscribers, allowing them to create optimal solutions for their needs. The service enables autonomous positioning on connected GNSS IoT devices including asset tracking, wearables, in-dash navigation and mobile devices. For situations where accuracy is paramount, StarCourse Premium provides ultra-precise predicted ephemeris for the first 24 hours.
Trailer management solution FleetLocate captures data at the trailer level and translates it into actionable business intelligence to increase trailer productivity while reducing waste and costs. Telematics devices deliver core trailer insights that help automate yard checks and maximize use. Advanced trailer technologies are available, such as solar power management, tethered/untethered configurations, IntelliScan cargo sensing, cargo image capture and retrieval, door sensors, liftgate battery monitoring and more.
A specialist team at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison) used the Routescene UAV lidar system to detect and visualize forests in Northern Wisconsin, United States, as part of the CHEESEHEAD project. The objective of the project is to improve weather forecasting by understanding how vegetation and forests influence the atmosphere. This information will be used by decision makers to develop policies that more effectively enable carbon emission reductions.
Project overview
The CHEESEHEAD project (The Chequamegon Heterogeneous Ecosystem Energy-balance Study Enabled by a High-density Extensive Array of Detectors) studies interactions and feedback between the land surface and atmosphere and how these results can be used to improve weather and climate models. Ultimately, the results will enable better carbon-emission reduction policy making.
Visualization of dominant tree structures in Northern Wisconsin around the flux towers. (Image: Routescene)
The UAV Lidar Surveys
The UW-Madison team collected high density 3D point-cloud data of the prominent tree species in Wisconsin’s Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest. Routescene’s drone-mounted lidar system captured the full tree structure, from the tree canopy to ground-level vegetation.
UAV lidar works well to quickly and efficiently survey and represent the type, shape and composition of a forest canopy. Surveys were carried out around eleven 100-foot flux towers within areas that ranged from 0.25 km² to 1 km². Six forest types were identified that included aspen, pine, poplar, larch, cedar and hardwood.
“The tall canopy of 20–30 m height created difficult flying conditions,” said Christian Andresen, UW-Madison. “It was difficult to keep a visual line of sight, so we decided to fly smaller 500 m x 500 m flights to keep sight of the drone.”
The Routescene lidar system includes a 32-laser lidar sensor providing a scan rate of up to 1.4 million points per second. Point-cloud density averaged 600 points per meter squared with a vertical accuracy of 2–5 cm.
“The Routescene system worked flawlessly and we achieved all we had planned. Over the three days, our crew of two covered a total of 4.2 km²,” Andresen said. “We were particularly impressed with the density of overlapping flight lines and the mapping of the forest structure.”
This project contributed to the wider CHEESEHEAD experiment to generate knowledge that advances the science of surface flux measurement and modelling, relevant to many scientific applications such as numerical weather prediction, climate change, energy resources and computational fluid dynamics.
“Seen & Heard” is a monthly feature of GPS World magazine, traveling the world to capture interesting and unusual news stories involving the GNSS/PNT industry.
Screenshot: Global News video
Our Spinning Globe
A highlight of the opening ceremony at the Tokyo 2021 Olympics was a revolving globe above the Olympic stadium. The 1,824 Intel Shooting Star 3 drones formed a complex set of geometrical shapes before transitioning into the games’ emblem, and then a 3D representation of Earth. The Intel Shooting Star 3 drones are designed for entertainment purposes. Each drone weighs 340 grams, is equipped with four extremely bright LEDs, and features real-time kinematic (RTK) GPS for the increased positional accuracy needed for high-resolution animations, sharp imagery and dynamic 3D animations.
Illegal coffee plantations have appeared inside Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park in Indonesia, a key habitat for the endangered Sumatran tiger and other species. Conservationist Matt Leggett noticed in satellite images the declining size of the forest, and sent a team of researchers on an undercover operation on dirt bikes with cameras and GPS receivers, reports the Aug. 11 New York Times Magazine. Leggett’s team mapped hundreds of small coffee farms and investigated the complex chain of custody, which ends with major brand names. No solution has been found, though some farmers have promised to replant the forest over the next 15 years, while others continue to clear park land.
Seven scientific-grade GPS stations are joining a network of 65 that the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory operates on the Hawaiian Islands. As Hawaiian volcanoes erupt and grow, they add weight to the Earth’s surface, causing the Pacific Plate to flex downward and possibly causing the shelf to splinter. Earthquakes this spring in Hawaii likely were related to weight on the underlying crust and mantle from eruptions. Collecting years of data from these stations should help scientists better understand motions of the Pacific Plate, according to researcher Jeff Freymueller, Michigan State University. The first three GPS stations were installed in May; others are being installed this summer.
Nikon could be launching a consumer camera equipped with GNSS instead of only GPS, providing a major upgrade for the geolocation coordinates provided with photo metadata. Filings with the governments of Russia and Indonesia describe a camera dubbed N2014, which will be equipped with GNSS as well as Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. A number of Nikon CoolPix digital cameras have built-in GPS, while other cameras — Nikon D-SLRs and select Nikon 1 — can use optional accessory GPS devices.
Spirent GNSS Foresight predicts where and when unmanned vehicles, air taxis and drones can operate safely and dependably beyond visual line of sight
Spirent Communications plc has launched Spirent GNSS Foresight, a cloud-based solution that lets operators know in advance where and when GPS or GNSS positioning is reliable for unmanned and autonomous journeys.
GNSS Foresight accurately predicts where and when unmanned vehicles, air taxis and drones can operate safely and dependably beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), especially in urban areas where buildings frequently obstruct GNSS signals.
The service addresses a key issue facing developers and operators of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and autonomous vehicles. Because GNSS performance can be unpredictable in urban and suburban areas from signals being obscured or blocked by buildings, autonomous systems have not been able to rely on GNSS for accurate positioning.
GNSS Foresight will be shown publicly for the first time at ION GNSS+ 2021 in St. Louis, Missouri (Sept. 22–24).
“Accurate, reliable GNSS performance is a key enabler of game-changing innovations that are shaping our future — autonomous drones, air taxis, cars and trucks,” said Spirent’s vice president of PNT Assurance, Jeremy Bennington. “GNSS Foresight overcomes navigation and positioning challenges by providing real-world situational awareness ahead of time for pre-flight, or for real-time performance improvement, through a cloud-based service. It can be used to determine areas that are always safe to fly or operate in, in addition to finding the exact time in a degraded area when specific operational requirements can be met. GNSS Foresight enables operators to enhance efficiency, safety and ROI through the resulting operational improvements.”
Spirent GNSS Foresight’s ability to accurately predict where and when autonomous systems will perform enables users to scale operations or services by expanding operational areas, reducing the number of system disengagements, and providing a greater level of safety and reliability assurance when reducing — or ultimately removing — human involvement in the driving or piloting task.
GNSS Foresight can produce forecasts using data from any of the world’s satellite constellations, and is of particular interest to the aviation and UAS sector, as well as the automotive industry. It will be shown publicly for the first time at ION GNSS+ in St Louis (Sept. 22–24).
An unmanned MQ-25 T1 test asset refueled a third U.S. Navy carrier-based aircraft, demonstrating the maturity of the aircraft’s design and performance
The U.S. Navy and Boeing used the MQ-25 T1 test asset on Sept. 13 to refuel a U.S. Navy F-35C Lightning II fighter jet for the first time, demonstrating the aircraft’s ability to achieve its primary aerial refueling mission.
This was the third refueling mission for the Boeing-owned test asset in just over three months, advancing the test program for the Navy’s first operational carrier-based unmanned aircraft. T1 refueled an F/A-18 Super Hornet in June and an E-2D Hawkeye in August.
“Every test flight with another type/model/series aircraft gets us one step closer to rapidly delivering a fully mission-capable MQ-25 to the fleet,” said Capt. Chad Reed, the Navy’s Unmanned Carrier Aviation program manager. “Stingray’s unmatched refueling capability is going to increase the Navy’s power projection and provide operational flexibility to the Carrier Strike Group commanders.”
During a test flight on Sept. 13, an F-35C test pilot from the Navy’s Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Two Three (VX-23) conducted a successful wake survey behind T1 to ensure performance and stability before making contact with T1’s aerial refueling drogue and receiving fuel.
“This flight was yet another physical demonstration of the maturity and stability of the MQ-25 aircraft design,” said Dave Bujold, Boeing’s MQ-25 program director. “Thanks to this latest mission in our accelerated test program, we are confident the MQ-25 aircraft we are building right now will meet the Navy’s primary requirement — delivering fuel safely to the carrier air wing.”
The T1 flight test program began in September 2019 with the aircraft’s first flight. In the following two years, the test program completed more than 120 flight hours — gathering data on everything from aircraft performance to propulsion dynamics to structural loads and flutter testing for strength and stability.
MQ-25 is benefitting from the two years of early flight test data, which has been integrated back into its digital models to strengthen the digital thread connecting aircraft design, production, test, operations and sustainment.
T1 will be used to conduct a deck handling demonstration aboard a U.S. Navy carrier in the coming months to help advance the carrier integration progress.
Boeing’s MQ-25 T1 test asset transfers fuel to a U.S. Navy F-35C Lightning II fighter jet Sept. 13 during a flight-test mission. The Navy and Boeing have conducted three refueling flights in the past three months, including an F/A-18 Super Hornet and E-2D Hawkeye. (Photo: Kevin Flynn/Boeing)
The Ingenuity UAV is still buzzing around on Mars, well past its anticipated evaluation/test lifetime, and is still providing intriguing video and photographic coverage of the surface. Having established that it can fly in the Martian atmosphere and having achieved all its own test objectives, its role is now that of a “pathfinder” — in the truest form of the word — scouting out routes for its big brother Perseverance rover.
The principle objective of the mission remains the search for signs of life, and this is now being performed by the SUV-sized land-bound ground unmanned vehicle (GUV) rover. The project is managed by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
Since our earlier stories covered the phenomenal achievements of the little 2 Kg UAV, it’s reasonable that we provide details of its development and design, largely by JPL and AeroVironment.
Talking with the Ben Pipenberg, the AeroVironment engineering lead for the Ingenuity program, it was clear that the company’s role had been to bring its extensive unmanned experience to the requirements for flight on the red planet. It turns out flying high-altitude pseudo-satellite unmanned aircraft at up to 90,000 feet teaches you a lot about vehicle dynamics in very thin air, and AeroVironment has been doing that for many years. The company developed Ingenuity’s rotor and rotor-drive systems, and the minimal weight structure of the vehicle.
JPL developed the flight-control systems, power system, telecoms and electronics that enabled communications, navigation, guidance, video and control of Ingenuity on Mars.
Mars is cold, especially at night, reaching as low as –148 °F. It has few clouds, is a long way from the sun, and has a very thin atmosphere. When JPL decided to use mostly off-the-shelf components, the added task of keeping the electronics warm using minimal power became absolutely essential. Power is provided by a lithium-ion battery pack with its own heaters and temperature control, which is recharged by a small solar photo-electric panel mounted on the top of the vehicle above the rotors.
Integrity’s lithium-ion battery, heaters and temperature sensors. (Diagram: Aerovironment)Principle vehicle elements. (Diagram: Aerovironment)
The electronics are carried in the electronics core module (ECM), which is mounted inside the insulated box and mechanically attached to a central, hollow, structural tube, on which the flight motors, rotors and landing legs are all attached. The electronics box has a 3-cm gap between the skin and the ECM, which is filled with inert, insulating carbon dioxide gas — heat retention and power management are the basics for survival on the Mars surface. Keeping the batteries above –15 °C is the design goal for the temperature control system, which also enables the electronics and sensors to survive and operate.
The avionics boards are wrapped around the heated battery-pack with the battery interface board at the bottom, along with the FPGA/flight controller board (FFB), the NAV/servo controller board (NSB), the telecom board (TCB) and the helicopter power board (HPB) mounted vertically. The navigation camera (NC) and the return-to-Earth (RTE) camera are both slung from the front, lower (direction of flight) side of the ECM, peering through a clear window in the insulated box.
The FPGA basically runs the show, managing most tasks, especially two redundant flight controller microprocessors. An additional CPU controls power through several interfaces to the vehicle systems, including the motors driving the rotors. The CPU also runs control software that initiates mode changes based on external commands, and guidance/navigation — using data from the inertial measurement unit (IMU), the nav camera and altimeter — limiting position, velocity and attitude drift. The telecom module manages communications and some power functions, and the power board manages vehicle power.
Off-the-shelf sensors are interfaced to the FPGA and include the nav camera, two dual redundant three-axis micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) IMUs, an inclinometer for IMU calibration on the surface, and an altimeter. These sensor outputs are used to produce a velocity solution, derived helicopter position and attitude. The nav camera provides images compared frame by frame to stored topography to derive an estimate of vehicle velocity while airborne.
The FPGA is responsible for flight and attitude control, waypoint guidance, maintenance of system time, running a motor-control loop and fault management, as well as providing power management and some thermal control. The FPGA also manages multiple redundant interfaces between the various subsystems, and telemetry communications back to the rover during flight. It also operates the two redundant flight control processors, determining when to switch from one to the other, and provides stored critical data to each processor whenever power is cycled.
As anyone involved in space electronics knows, one of the main design constraints for Integrity was to minimize the effects of single-event upsets (SEUs). SEUs are largely due to cosmic ray effects on electronic components that are not specifically hardened against them. This means most of the electronics used on this particular unmanned vehicle may be susceptible to SEU failures, even though MIL-SPEC, extended-temperature-range components were used wherever possible. Nevertheless, there are dual-redundant IMUs, so one is kept on standby, and the key FPGA is MIL-SPEC, radiation tolerant and has three parallel, duplicated channels. Other components were pre-selected for tolerance to latch-up; a current monitor helps detect such latch-ups with power cycling used to clear these events.
Meanwhile, on Mars Integrity completed its 13th flight on Sept. 4, taking photos toward the southwest of the South Seítah region of Jezero Crater, and flying slower and lower than in previous expeditions. The object was to gather more detail of raised ridges and outcrops from a different angle than the 12th flight — an area in which the science team may have particular interest. It’s possible that the Perseverance rover may soon find itself exploring this area.
Integrity photographs the South Séítah region during its 12th flight. (Photo: NASA/JPL)
As unremarkable as this scene might appear to us laymen, there is a ridgeline in the middle of the above shot where the team may soon decide to send Perseverance to dig, drill and scoop.
Integrity takes a shadow “selfie” during its13th flight. (Photo: NASA/JPL)
Tony Murfin GNSSAerospace
Acknowledgements
Aerovironment: Ben Pipenberg, the company’s extensive role in the Ingenuity project is summarized in a presentation for the recent AUVSI Xponential convention in Atlanta.
NASA/JPL: Integrity’s development is described in depth in NASA/JLP paper “Mars Helicopter Technology Demonstrator,” which is a principle source of material for this article.
New flagship offering can be mounted on a light manned aircraft or switched to different types of UAV platforms
Photo: YellowScan
YellowScan, a designer of UAV lidar solutions, has launched the YellowScan Explorer. The Explorer can be mounted on a light manned aircraft or switched to different types of UAV platforms. The compact, versatile, long-range platform allows users to tackle a wide range of projects and mission profiles.
The Explorer’s high-power laser scanner can catch points up to 600 meters away, yet its low weight (2.3 Kg without battery) provides users with an integratable system. Combining Explorer with YellowScan’s full suite of software solutions to extract and process point cloud data provides users with a highly accurate set of tools for surveying, forestry, environmental research, archaeology, industrial inspection, civil engineering and mining.
The Explorer comes with an Applanix APX-20 UAV GNSS/inertial solution, precision of 2.6 cm and accuracy of 2.2 cm. Flight operation speed is 5 m/s to 35 m/s and it is capable of above-ground-level (AGL) altitude up to 300 m. Designed to be mounted on fixed-wing UAV, multi-rotor UAV or manned aircraft (light plane and helicopter), Explorer can enable a large variety of mission profiles.
YellowScan launched the Explorer during Commercial UAV Expo 2021 in Las Vegas, Sept. 7-9.
“We have been working on Explorer for the last three years, building on everything we have learned and achieved to date from a hardware, software and component integration perspective,” said Nassim Doukkali, R&D project manager, YellowScan. “One of the elements we are most proud of is the laser scanner, which has been designed according our specific specifications. With a maximum range of 600 m, the Explorer has exceeded YellowScan’s initial expectations.”
In 2017, YellowScan took part in a research project called FRELON (“French long range lidar”), funded by the European Regional Development Fund. The goal was to develop a new standard for long-range lidar by bringing together innovative specialists like YellowScan to collaborate directly with Airbus Defense and Space, Delair, M3 Systems and utility end-users EDF, RTE, Enedis and SNCF to develop the next-generation solution to meet their requirements.
“We are proud to finally release Explorer,” said Tristan Allouis, CTO, YellowScan. “This is our answer to the market’s need for a single long-range, yet compact, lidar unit that can be mounted on light manned aircraft and various UAV platforms.”
Northrop Grumman and Martin UAV (a Shield AI company) have completed successful flight testing of a V-BAT unmanned aircraft system (UAS) with new features including GPS-denied navigation and target designation capabilities.
The enhanced V-BAT’s flexible vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) capability is based on a platform deployed to address the U.S. Army’s Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System (FTUAS) mission. For FTUAS, the U.S. Army is seeking a rapidly deployable, GPS-denied navigation-capable, expeditionary VTOL system capable of persistent aerial reconnaissance for U.S. Army brigade combat teams, special forces, and Ranger battalions.
The offering is based on Martin’s UAV V-BAT UAS. According to Northrop Grumman, it is compact, lightweight, simple to operate, and can be set up, launched and recovered by a two-soldier team in confined environments. The V-BAT also is designed with sufficient payload capacity to carry a range of interchangeable payloads, including electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR), synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and electronic warfare (EW) payloads, depending on mission-specific requirements. Additionally, Shield AI’s recent acquisition of Martin UAV will enable rapid development of GPS-denied and autonomy capabilities for V-BAT through the future porting of Shield AI’s autonomy stack, Hivemind, onto V-BAT.
Northrop Grumman and Martin UAV conduct flight testing of Martin UAV’s V-BAT aircraft for the U.S. Army’s Future Tactical Unmanned Aircraft System effort in Camp Grafton, North Dakota. (Photo: Northrop Grumman)
