Operator Challenge Response

Focusing on incremental improvements towards user experience and interaction, the team will integrate solutions such as thermal hold, TX deadman switch, and so forth to enable more hands-off capabilities and autonomy, while also providing failsafe systems in the case of loss of signal. These systems will integrate with a streamlined UI to reduce operator mental load while also providing the capability for one pilot to command multiple UAS.

Currently drones completely rely on manual control in the field, distracting operators from their surroundings and increasing their vulnerability to attack. Drones also currently have limited tolerance to signal drops and interference, with extended signal loss likely resulting in the loss of the vehicle, and have no way to recover in case the operator has to move their attention to another task.

We propose a UAS built upon the PX4 flight controller with approximately 20-minute endurance with a one-pound payload. In addition to the PX4 we will mount an Nvidia Jetson NX and FLIR Boson 640 to provide autonomous flight capabilities, and plan to pursue the feasibility of mounting multiple Bosons to the UAS to use for stereographic imagery and navigation. Some of the autonomous flight modes we plan to implement are hold mode, where once a position is set the UAV would hover and perform overwatch with alerts to the operator if movement or other threats are detected. We also plan to pursue waypoint navigation in the long term, allowing for autonomous flight in a GPS denied environment without any RF, IR, or visible emissions. We will build a quadcopter with a PX4 onboard to test all of these flight modes, and plan to modify its controller to include a deadman’s switch and other UX improvements.

• Getting depth data from thermal cameras. (no shadows, frame-sync, stereo, etc.)
• Thermal Flow: taking current optical flow holds on PX4 and converting to thermal with integration into a Jetson NX
• Overcoming limited flight time and payload without enlarging the UAS to an unreasonable size for one-man operation 
• Integration of alerts and possible control though ATAK