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Maintaining Situation Awareness with Autonomous Airborne Observation PlatformsUnmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer tremendous potential as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms for early detection of security threats and for acquisition and maintenance of situation awareness in crisis conditions. However, using their capabilities effectively requires addressing a range of practical and theoretical problems. The paper will describe progress by the "Autonomous Rotorcraft Project," a collaborative effort between NASA and the U.S. Army to develop a practical, flexible capability for UAV-based ISR. Important facets of the project include optimization methods for allocating scarce aircraft resources to observe numerous, distinct sites of interest; intelligent flight automation software than integrates high-level plan generation capabilities with executive control, failure response and flight control functions; a system architecture supporting reconfiguration of onboard sensors to address different kinds of threats; and an advanced prototype vehicle designed to allow large-scale production at low cost. The paper will also address human interaction issues including an empirical method for determining how to allocate roles and responsibilities between flight automation and human operations.
Document ID
20050240150
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Preprint (Draft being sent to journal)
Authors
Freed, Michael
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Fitzgerald, Will
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2005
Subject Category
Aircraft Communications And Navigation
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Work of the US Gov. Public Use Permitted.

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