Samuel Siqueira Bueno

A semi-autonomous robotic airship for environmental monitoring missions

This paper discusses Project AURORA (autonomous unmanned remote monitoring robotic airship) which focuses on the development of the control, navigation, sensing, and inference technologies required for substantially autonomous robotic airships. Our target application areas include the use of robotic airships for environmental, biodiversity, and climate research and monitoring. Based on typical mission requirements, we present arguments that favour airships over airplanes and helicopters as the ideal platforms for such missions. We outline the overall system architecture of the AURORA robotic airship, discuss its main subsystems, and mention the research and development issues involved.

Robotic Airships for Exploration of Planetary Bodies with an Atmosphere: Autonomy Challenges

Robotic unmanned aerial vehicles have great potential as surveying and instrument deployment platforms in the exploration of planets and moons with an atmosphere. Among the various types of planetary aerovehicles proposed, lighter-than-atmosphere (LTA) systems are of particular interest because of their extended mission duration and long traverse capabilities. In this paper, we argue that the unique characteristics of robotic airships make them ideal candidates for exploration of planetary bodies with an atmosphere. Robotic airships extend the capabilities of balloons through their flight controllability, allowing (1) precise flight path execution for surveying purposes, (2) long-range as well as close-up ground observations, (3) station-keeping for long-term monitoring of high science value sites, (4) transportation and deployment of scientific instruments and in situ laboratory facilities across vast distances, and (5) opportunistic flight path replanning in response to the detection of relevant sensor signatures. Implementation of these capabilities requires achieving a high degree of vehicle autonomy across a broad spectrum of operational scenarios. The paper outlines some of the core autonomy technologies required to implement the capabilities listed above, drawing on work and results obtained in the context of AURORA (Autonomous Unmanned Remote Monitoring Robotic Airship), a research effort that focuses on the development of the technologies required for substantially autonomous robotic airships. We discuss airship modeling and control, autonomous navigation, and sensor-based flight control. We also outline an approach to airborne perception and monitoring which includes mission-specific target acquisition, discrimination and identification, and present experimental results obtained with AURORA.

A control system development environment for AURORA's semi-autonomous robotic airship

Development of reliable control systems for semi-autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles require the use of extensive simulation data provided by an accurate six-degrees-of-freedom dynamic model. In this article we describe a Simulink-based control system development environment for Project AURORAs unmanned robotic airship, as well as the control algorithms and supervisory level of AURORAs control system. A complete take-off to landing mission illustrates the utilization of this environment.

Visual servo control for the hovering of all outdoor robotic airship

Addresses the issue of automatic hovering of an outdoor autonomous airship using image-based visual servoing. The hovering controller is designed using a full dynamic model of the airship, in a PD error feedback scheme, taking the visual signals as output and extracted from an on-board camera. The behavior and stability of the airship motion during the task execution and subjected to the wind disturbance is studied. The approach is finally validated in simulation using an accurate airship model.

Influence of Wind Speed on Airship Dynamics

A new formulation of the equations of motion of an airship is derived to allow the analysis of the wind ine uence on the airship dynamics. Initially, theequations of motion arewritten via the Lagragian approach, considering the three kinetic energy terms associated with 1 ) the energy of the vehicle motion itself, 2 ) the energy of the air around the airship due to the relative velocities, and 3 ) the energy added to the buoyancy air. After that, the equations of motion are translated into Newton’ s second law formulation, yielding a new term, wind-induced force and torque. When the airship geometry approximated by an ellipsoid of revolution is considered the wind-induced terms are then explicitly derived, and their contribution on the longitudinal and lateral dynamics of the airship motion is analyzed. The results are illustrated using the model of a real airship, considering a given range of wind speed and a constant low airspeed.

Project AURORA: Infrastructure and flight control experiments for a robotic airship

Project AURORA aims at the development of unmanned robotic airships capable of autonomous flight over user-defined locations for aerial inspection and environmental monitoring missions. In this article, the authors report a successful control and navigation scheme for a robotic airship flight path following. First, the AURORA airship, software environment, onboard system, and ground station infrastructures are described. Then, two main approaches for the automatic control and navigation system of the airship are presented. The first one shows the design of dedicated controllers based on the linearized dynamics of the vehicle. Following this methodology, experimental results for the airship flight path following through a set of predefined points in latitude/longitude, along with automatic altitude control are presented. A second approach considers the design of a single global nonlinear control scheme, covering all of the aerodynamic operational range in a sole formulation. Nonlinear control solutions under investigation for the AURORA airship are briefly described, along with some preliminary simulation results.

Project AURORA: Development of an Autonomous Unmanned Remote Monitoring Robotic Airship

There exists an immense potential for the utilization of robotic airships as low speed, low altitude aerial vehicles in exploration, monitoring, and transportation tasks. This article discusses Project AURORA - Autonomous Unmanned Remote mOnitoring Robotic Airship which focuses on the development of the control, navigation, sensing, and inference technologies required for substantially autonomous robotic airships. Our target application areas include the use of robotic airships for environmental, biodiversity, and climate research and monitoring. Based on typical mission requirements, we present arguments that favor airships over airplanes and helicopters as the ideal platforms for such missions. We outline the overall system architecture of the AURORA robotic airship, discuss its main subsystems, and mention the research and development issues involved.

Sliding Mode Control Approaches for an Autonomous Unmanned Airship

[Abstract] This paper presents the research developments for the global nonlinear control of an autonomous airship, covering the full flight envelope from hovering to aerodynamic flight. It focuses on the longitudinal control of the airship using two different Sliding Mode control techniques that are the classical sliding mode and the unit vector approach. The design methodologies for both techniques are presented along with some representative simulation results.

Internet-based solutions in the development and operation of an unmanned robotic airship

Internet robotic systems have a different role in the use and development of aerial robots compared to that for ground robots. While for ground robotic vehicles, Internet is useful for remote operation or to make remote development, in aerial vehicles, in addition, the safety aspect must be considered very carefully. This paper addresses the requirements to the specific case of Internet aerial robots. It describes the conceptual and implementation aspects of an Internet-based software architecture for the AURORA unmanned autonomous airship project, showing its use in the different project phases.

Development of a VRML/Java unmanned airship simulating environment

We present one of the first Internet-accessible airship simulators, based on a comprehensive airship dynamic model. The simulator is meant to be used as a tool for the development of control and navigation methods for autonomous and semi-autonomous robotic airships and as testbed for airship pilot training. Realistic views of both the airship in flight and that of a virtual pilot are provided, as are commands to apply thrust to the engines, swivel them up and down, and deflect the control surfaces. This work is significant for providing robotics researchers with means to safely experiment with airship control.