Payload Design of Autonomous Small UAVs

Abstract

In this section, we present a payload design process for small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We detail several payload design principles to overcome various constraints imposed by the stringent weight, power, and space requirements of small UAVs. Throughout the section, we demonstrate the efficacy of these principles with an example payload for a fixed wing small UAV used by the Academy Center for UAS Research at the US Air Force Academy. In this example application, a UAV is to be used to autonomously search, detect, localize, and track a ground target. The system requirements generated by this example application are closely related to those for other small UA V applications.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 06, 2012
Accession Number
AD1029750

Entities

People

  • Chad Hager
  • Daniel Pack
  • Hyukseong Kwon
  • Josiah Yoder
  • Rajnikant Sharma
  • Scott Gruber

Organizations

  • United States Air Force Academy

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Autonomy
  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Sensors

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircrafts
  • Automatic Pilots
  • Autonomous Systems
  • Bandwidth
  • Communication Systems
  • Control Systems
  • Detection
  • Detectors
  • Electro-Optical Sensors
  • Frequency
  • Frequency Bands
  • Global Positioning Systems
  • Ground Stations
  • Inertial Measurement Units
  • Optical Detectors
  • Unmanned Aerial Systems
  • Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Robotics and Automation.
  • Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Autonomous Capabilities and Mission Reconnaissance.

Technology Areas

  • Autonomy
  • Autonomy - UAVs
  • Space
  • Space - Satellites
  • Space - Space Objects
  • Space - Spacecraft Maneuvers