Development of UAS components architecture for UAS civil application readiness

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Small and medium size aerial vehicles (< 25 kg) are seeing explosive growth in design and functionality, due to their ease of use and ability to collect valuable sensor data from an aerial perspective. Numerous applications such as orthomosaic terrain images, public safety, precision agriculture and infrastructure inspection have seen the most rapid adoption of the new technology, as these applications occur in open spaces far away from infrastructures in the environment. There are many more applications, such as infrastructure inspection, target tracking, search & rescue and parcel delivery, that will further expand the market for small to medium UAS (unmanned Aerial Systems) as their design pushes the limits of traditional aircraft design, but are currently limited due to the difficulty of automatically identifying the best available sensors in terms of cost, sensibility, weight, resolution, etc. to collect the needed data. By effectively selecting the best sensors for a given mission UAS operators and service providers will be able to maximize the use of their UAS to provide clients the best bang for their buck. Currently available UAS systems equipped with generic sensors are used in multiple missions. While such systems are more than adequate for some tasks they are ineffective tools for others due to the lack of certain aspects in the installed sensors. This project will develop mechanisms to automatically select the best sensor(s) based on a given UAS aircraft that will best accomplish the given mission. The mechanism to be developed will take into account the size and type of UAS, the environmental conditions, the budget, the available sensors, etc. This project seeks to address the current limitations of mission satisfaction and UAS optimal flight by advancing sensor selection for a given mission goals. When coupled with existing tools/practices the developments will enable operators maximize the use of their UAS and perform numerous missions at the highest level. The proposed work is of high interest to the supporting company as they start providing UAS services in the areas of Urban policing, Emergency and Wild fire management. This project builds upon UofC's expertise and extends the scope of previous work conducted by the PI of this proposal.