Rotorcraft UAVs

NASA CT Space Grant

Applied Rotary Wing Engineering
Helicopter Workshop
Paul Pounds
22 June 2011

Paul Pounds 2011

 This seminar
Comprises several topics arranged into modules
2-3 minute small-group discussion questions
Brief intermission between modules
Larger break after module 3 4
Demonstration flight later in the afternoon
If things actually work

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1. Introduction to UAVs

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 This module
UAVs: what are they?
Definitions, what is/is not a UAV
Unmanned aircraft through the ages
Autonomous aircraft in the 20th century and beyond
The thinking flying machine
Intelligence and degree of autonomy

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Early morning stimulus questions 1
What is an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)?

What aircraft are not UAVs? Give examples

Form groups of 2-3 people and

yell at them until you all agree

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 So, what is a UAV?
Generally speaking, a UAV is a robot aircraft
By now you should have a pretty good handle on
what an aircraft is

But what is a robot?

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Early morning stimulus questions 2
What is a robot?

What are common features of robots?

Form groups of 2-3 people and

yell at them until you all agree

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 Well, what is a robot then?
A hard question! There are several definitions:
Wikipedia: A mechanical contraption which can perform tasks on
its own, or with guidance.

Merriam-Webster: A device that performs complicated often

repetitive tasks, guided by automatic controls.

Me: A dynamical system that uses knowledge about its

environment to perform tasks.

Bash.org: It collects data about the surrounding

environment, then discards it and drives into walls.

Paul Pounds 2011

 Well, what is a robot then?
A hard question! There are several definitions:
Wikipedia: A mechanical contraption which can perform tasks on
its own, or with guidance.

Merriam-Webster: A device that performs complicated often

repetitive tasks, guided by automatic controls.

Me: A dynamical system that uses knowledge about its

environment to perform tasks.

Bash.org: It collects data about the surrounding

environment, then discards it and drives into walls.

Paul Pounds 2011

 Well, what is a robot then?
A hard question! There are several definitions:
Wikipedia: A mechanical contraption which can perform tasks on
its own, or with guidance.

Merriam-Webster: A device that performs complicated often

repetitive tasks, guided by automatic controls.

Me: A dynamical system that uses knowledge about its

environment to perform tasks.

Bash.org: It collects data about the surrounding

environment, then discards it and drives into walls.

Paul Pounds 2011

 Well, what is a robot then?
A hard question! There are several definitions:
Wikipedia: A mechanical contraption which can perform tasks on
its own, or with guidance.

Merriam-Webster: A device that performs complicated often

repetitive tasks, guided by automatic controls.

Me: A dynamical system that uses knowledge about its

environment to perform tasks.

Bash.org: It collects data about the surrounding

environment, then discards it and drives into walls.

Paul Pounds 2011

 Well, what is a robot then?
A hard question! There are several definitions:
Wikipedia: A mechanical contraption which can perform tasks on
its own, or with guidance.

Merriam-Webster: A device that performs complicated often

repetitive tasks, guided by automatic controls.

Me: A dynamical system that uses knowledge about its

environment to perform tasks.

Bash.org: It collects data about the surrounding

environment, then discards it and drives into walls.

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 Common features of robots
Some things we agree on:
Mechanical system, device, contraption
Automatic, guidance, control
Environment, surroundings, knowledge
Performs tasks
Drives into walls

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Common features of robots

*Black Horizon, No one dies in unmanned UAV crash+

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 So, what about UAVs then?
UAVs necessarily have:
Unmanned: no onboard operator
Control: self-regulating flight
Perception: sense the environment and react to it
Useful functionality: perform tasks

What does this exclude?

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 What is not a UAV?
Not UAVs:
Aircraft autopilots (human pilot onboard)
Passive devices, eg. parachutes (no control)
Ballistic rocket (no intelligence)
Radio control toys (dont perform tasks)

The lines are blurry:

What about a cruise missile?
An autonomous paraglider soaring on thermals?
An airliner that flies the whole trip on auto?
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Early morning stimulus questions 3
When was the first UAV made?

What factors have driven UAV development?

Form groups of 2-3 people and

yell at them until you all agree

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A brief history of UAVs.

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 In the beginning

Peter Hewitt Elmer Sperry

[Bain News Service] [James Wilson]

1917: Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Aeroplane

Stabilised using gyroscopes and barometers
Could travel 50 km and drop a sandbag within 3.2
km of a target
Only 14 years after the Wright
Paul Pounds 2011 Flyer I
 now use it to blow things up

Curtist-Sperry Flying Bomb [valka.com] Kettering Bug [Monash]

Curtis-Sperry Flying Bomb

First fully-unmanned powered flight of an aircraft
Launched from car, preset flying distance of 900 m
Kettering Bug
First production cruise
Paulmissile
Pounds 2011 45 built
 Interwar

LARYNX flying bomb [US gov.] Tiger Moth Queen Bee *Arpingstone+

Radio-controlled aircraft predominantly used for

target practice
Much British innovation:
Fairey-Queen, Queen Bee, Queen Wasp RPV targets
(from whence the term drone originates)
LARYNX ship-launched aerial torpedo
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 WWII: Allies

Aphrodite drone taking off Norma Jean, Radioplane technician

[USAAF] [David Conover]
Operation Aphrodite:
B-17 and B-24 bombers packed with explosives
Takeoff and flight to target by human crew
Terminal guidance by radio control, with TV
cameras pointed at flight instruments and window
Radioplane target drones and hobby aircraft
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 WWII: Axis

Spitfire toppling a V-1 [RAF] Mistel compound aircraft [Catalyst]

Mistel project fighter-guided bombs

Similar concept to Aphrodite
Gyroscopic controls for terminal guidance
Extensive use of V-1 missiles - 23,000 casualties
First effective cruise missile drone

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 Anatomy of a V-1
Pulsejet engine

Fuel tank

Warhead

Control surface actuators

Altitude and gyro controls

Wire-wound compressed air tanks

Gyrocompass, pendulum
Vane odometer
Impact detonator [USAF]
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 Post-war: cruise missiles

MGM-1 Matador [USAF] SM-62 Snark [US gov.] X-10 [Boeing]

Modern versions of the V-1 concept 1950-1970

MGM-1 Matador: Radio-positioning system
SM-62 Snark: Intercontinental range, return to land
X-10: Unstable dynamics required active control,
used INS for mid-flight course changes
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 Post-war: reconnaissance drones

D-21 on M-21 [USAF] 147SK Lightning Bug [Vectorsite] Compass Cope B [NMUSAF]

Gary Powers incident led to increased emphasis

on unmanned reconnaissance drones
Focus on autonomous, expendable aircraft
Numerous deployments 1964-1975 over China
and Vietnam (550+ aircraft lost)
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 Post-war: Gyrodyne QH-50

[Gyrodyne Helicopter Historical Foundation]

The first unmanned helicopter - 1959

Remote piloted, ship-launched, armed drone
Gyroscopic feedback
Designed for ASW role nuclear depth bomb
Used by the US Navy up to 2006 - 775 built
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 Modern cruise missiles

BGM-109 Tomahawk [USN] Exocet [Rama] Storm Shadow [Monniaux]

Supersonic or high-subsonic cruise
Complex waypoint following
Many sensor modalities:
Radar altimeter, barometric altimeter
Inertial navigation systems
Global position system (when available)
Terrain contour matching
Visual terminal guidance
Single-use only (~$900,000 per Tomahawk!)
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 Modern UAVs

RQ-4 at Edinbrugh X-47B taking off Camcopter S-100 Visually guided refueling
[defence.gov.au] [Densmore] [Aviationweek] [Scott et al, 2007]

More capable than RPVs or cruise missiles:

Autonomous trans-pacific flight (USA to Australia)
Autonomous take-off and landing (from carriers!)
Autonomous mid-air refueling (tanker and client)
Autonomous loiter and tracking (IR, radar, etc)
Autonomous weapons delivery
Paul Pounds 2011 (maybe)
 Why have robot aircraft come so far?
(Compared to, say, autonomous cars)

UAVs are almost as old as powered flight

Technical reasons:
Inherent instability of aircraft made flight control a
natural development
Automatic control simplifies automation
Empty skies make the perception problem much
easier than for terrestrial vehicles
Political reasons:
Reduce risk to aircrews in a fragile political period
Reduce the political cost of strike action
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 Size doesnt matter

Mesicopter X-4 Flyer MQ-8 Firescout RQ-4 Global Hawk

[Koo et al] [Pounds et al] [USN] [USAF]

10mm 100mm 1m 10m

Characteristic aerodynamic length

UAVs span 4 orders of magnitude

Radically different flight regimes, flow conditions
But fundamentals of flight and perception
remain the same, just capacity for autonomy
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 The sliding scale of autonomy

Wright Flyer [Daniels] LEM [NASA] MIT quadrotor [Roy et al] Hal 9000 [Kubrick et al]

No autonomy Flight stability Takeoff and landing Path planning Artificial Intelligence

Trajectory regulation Navigation Obstacle avoidance Expert systems

747 [Boeing] F-117 [USAF] RQ-1 Predator [fastcompany] Human pilots [DHS]

There is a spectrum of capabilities traded off

between humans and robots
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The generic geometric shape of intelligence

Cognition

Perception Planning

Sensing Execution

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 Where Im going with this
Ill touch on each of these areas:
Flight control and trajectory following
Sensing and filtering
Perception and planning
(Cognition is a Hard AI problem, so I wont talk about it much)

The state of the art in UAV robotics research

If time permits, Ill cover these special topics:
Case study: heavy-lift quadrotor design
Case study: aerial manipulation
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Questions?

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Entracte.

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