Distributed Autonomous Pilot Control for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

无人机 (UAV) 分布式自主驾驶控制

• 批准号: 513818-2017
• 负责人: Chen, Xiang
• 金额: $ 1.82万
• 依托单位: University of Windsor
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Engage Grants Program
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=640068
• 关键词: Distributed; Autonomous; Pilot; Control; Unmanned

Autonomous vehicles such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) are gaining increasing acceptance in variousapplications. The UAV industry will see explosive growth in terms of both quantities and the areas ofapplications while the autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles will be in the market in foreseeable future. Itis observed that the trend of autopilot control is going towards intelligent as autonomous or semi-autonomousoperations of UAVs become more and more popular and necessary. Therefore, how to develop distributedsensors or sensor network based intelligent autopilot controllers is of vital interest and also technology-wiseinnovative for the UAV industry. In this regard, a network of field sensors such as cameras, sonic sensor,RADAR, LiDAR, etc., has to be applied with information fused together to provide the perception of thesurrounding environment. The autopilot controller could then make decision based on the fused information tomaneuver the autonomous operation of UAVs.In this project, it is intended to 1. develop distributed 3-D reconstruction algorithms for sensing and perceptionperformed by cameras and LiDARs; 2. develop sensing data fusion mechanism in a networked environment tobe integrated with the flight autopilot control; and 3. implement the controller with advanced hardwaretechnology such as multi-processors with graphic processing unit (GPU) or FPGA solution upon cost andefficiency assessment. In particular, the distributed algorithms will be developed for field sensor nodes and thedata fusion mechanism will be explored and developed for a networked and complimentary configuration offield sensors in order to assemble the information collected by each individual sensor in an automated way.Based on this distributed structure and the data fusion mechanism, the intelligent autopilot controller will bebuilt up for autonomous operation of UAVs. It is expected that the project deliverable be applied to optimizeintelligent autopilot design for various autonomous missions.

无人驾驶飞行器（UAV）等自动驾驶车辆在各种应用中越来越被接受。无人机行业在数量和应用领域方面都将出现爆炸性增长，而自主或半自主车辆将在可预见的未来进入市场。随着无人机自主或半自主操作的日益普及和必要性，自动驾驶仪控制的发展趋势是智能化。因此，如何开发基于分布式传感器或传感器网络的智能自动驾驶仪控制器是无人机行业的重要研究课题，也是无人机行业的技术创新方向.在这方面，现场传感器网络，例如摄像机、声波传感器、雷达、激光雷达等，必须与信息融合在一起，以提供对周围环境的感知。自动驾驶仪控制器根据融合后的信息进行决策，实现无人机的自主操纵。开发分布式三维重建算法，用于相机和激光雷达的传感和感知; 2.开发网络环境下的传感数据融合机制，与飞行自动驾驶仪控制集成;在成本和效率评估的基础上，采用先进的硬件技术，如多处理器和图形处理单元（GPU）或FPGA解决方案来实现控制器。特别是针对现场传感器节点的分布式算法进行了研究，针对现场传感器的网络化互补配置，探索并开发了数据融合机制，以自动化的方式将各个传感器采集的信息进行组合，基于这种分布式结构和数据融合机制，构建了无人机自主运行的智能自动驾驶仪控制器。预计该项目可交付成果将应用于优化各种自主任务的智能自动驾驶仪设计。