10/19/2005 ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SC Copyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005 James D. Paduano 1 NTC ACTIVITIES 2005 Outline 1)Activities Joint w/ MIT  ONR STTR Phase II Final Demonstration  AFOSR STTR - Autonomy w/ Imperfect Comms 2)XS-Series Helicopter Development  New flight systems  Aerial photography + other apps 3)Vision in Autonomous Aircraft  HILsim for Optic Flow Sensors  Optical Target for Precision Hover & Land

10/19/2005 ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SC Copyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005 James D. Paduano 2 1) JOINT MIT / NTC ACTIVITIES ONR STTR: Multi-vehicle cooperation in urban environment Final Demonstration: 2-vehicle beyond line-of-sight recon –2 fully autonomous rotorcraft –Real-time coordination by MILP –‘Away’ UAV goes beyond line-of-sight –‘Relay’ UAV maintains LOS w/ ‘Away’ UAV and ground station Aeronautics & Astronautics Flight Data in ‘Suburban’ Terrain: Red=Away, Green=Relay AFOSR STTR: CSAT with Intermittent Communication Capabilities being developed –Robust Distributed Task Assignment –Comm. emulation for multi-vehicle HILsim and flight testing –Communication Health Management –Low-cost on-board planning module Phase II Testbed: MIT Fixed-Wing Fleet RDTA Concept (How, MIT)

10/19/2005 ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SC Copyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005 James D. Paduano 3 2) XS-Series Helicopter Development New airframe, alternator, & 60W UPS Gas power, comms  ~5 mile range Lighter weight avionics & suspension Mount points for cameras & sensors New ground operator console/moving map Automatic take-off, landing, waypoint navigation, and real-time path uplink (for centralized coordination) Fail-safe and reversion modes Aerial photography/videography: –Stable, hovering platform –Higher altitudes than feasible manually –More accurate altitude, heading Testbed: Open architecture for integration of additional sensors “VTUAV surrogate” –< 25 lbs: Lower cost, risk –2 x 0.7 GHz Pentium processors on board for testing autonomy, vision, etc. NEAR-TERM APPLICATIONS

10/19/2005 ACGSC Fall Meeting, Hilton Head SC Copyright Nascent Technology Corporation © 2005 James D. Paduano 4 3) Vision in Autonomous Aircraft Optic Flow Sensor Testing (DARPA) –Sensor from Centeye Inc. –HILsim environment with urban terrain Feasibility of See-and-Avoid Using Optic Flow –2 nd ‘Threat’ Vehicle Simulated in HILsim environment –Detection, avoidance tests conducted Algorithms for Dodging / Urban Nav Optical Target for Precision Landing –Patented design using Moire patterns –Prelim. development underway at MIT –Next phase beginning at NTC Features –Position/orientation relative to target derived using passive imagery –Position sensitivity ~1 cm –Low resolution imagery sufficient to deduce relative position Aeronautics & Astronautics