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。无人机行业无论是数量还是应用领域都将出现爆发式增长，自动驾驶或半自动驾驶汽车将在可预见的未来上市。据观察，随着无人机自主或半自主操作变得越来越普遍和必要，自动驾驶控制的趋势正在走向智能化。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控制器是无人机行业的重要课题和技术创新。在这方面，必须应用摄像机、声波传感器、雷达、激光雷达等现场传感器网络，将信息融合在一起，以提供对周围环境的感知。然后，自动驾驶控制器可以根据融合的信息做出决策，以操纵无人机的自主操作。 在该项目中，其目的是 1. 开发分布式 3D 重建算法，用于摄像机和 LiDAR 执行的传感和感知； 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相结合； 3.根据成本和效率评估，采用先进的硬件技术（例如具有图形处理单元（GPU）的多处理器或FPGA解决方案）来实现控制器。特别是，将开发现场传感器节点的分布式算法，并探索和开发现场传感器网络化、互补配置的数据融合机制，以自动化的方式组装每个单独传感器收集的信息。基于这种分布式结构和数据融合机制，将构建用于无人机自主操作的智能自动驾驶控制器。预计该项目可交付成果可用于优化各种自主任务的智能自动驾驶仪设计。