Issues and Challenges for Co-operative UAV Missions Chris Halliday and Tony Dodd

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Overview Co-operative UAV missions The Challenges The Issues Command, Control and Communications Concluding remarks

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Large area: search and rescue

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Large area: search and rescue Need to communicate with central command

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Combat Missions [3]

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Combat Missions Search and destroy Combat search and rescue

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Urban [1]

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Urban Need to use existing communications Results of US study Is a communication infrastructure even in place?

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Agriculture, remote sensing, survey etc. [4]

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Agriculture, remote sensing, survey etc. Must use licensed frequencies Need for low cost solutions

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs UAV Formation Flying/Refueling [2] [5]

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs UAV Refueling Piloted tanker-to-UAV UAV tanker-to-piloted aircraft UAV-to-UAV Multiple UAV refueling Very close co-ordination required

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs The Challenges Autonomous navigation Complex and dynamic mission planning Collision and obstacle avoidance Task allocation and dynamic reconfiguration High level control and co-ordination of flight operations Mixed assets and human interaction Close formation flying

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs The Issues Communications: need to work within national regulations Allowable frequencies and powers different in different regions Severe limitations on range Problems in urban environments – interference (results of US study) Ad hoc comms networks

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Mixed manned/unmanned systems Need for C3 Remote operation/C3 – reliable, problem, unhumanised (kill at 10,000km) Operator workload - multiple UAVs Airspace and safety – UAVs operating in mixed airspace

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Mixed air-sea-ground systems

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs C3C3

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Communications GPS – location (but what about urban) Inter-vehicle comms – information sharing, deconfliction, mission planning… Back-to-base

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Formation Flying Routine for piloted aircraft

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Issues Different UAVs will have different capabilities - Global Hawk vs MAV Different users have access to different techologies/legal frequencies Makes very difficult to standardise

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Multi-vehicle Ground, sea and air

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Dynamic Mission Planning Autonomous navigation Mission planning Task allocation Co-ordination

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Search and destroy mission Reasons for being dynamic

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Work on this GAs and other evolutionary algorithms…

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs Concluding Remarks Legislation Certification

5 December 2007IET Seminar on Communicating with UAVs References [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]