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8 Platform one August/September | Unmanned Systems Technology In a project coordinated by the European Defence Agency (EDA), an industrial and academic team is developing surveillance services enabled by multiple cooperating swarms of UAVs at high and low altitudes with a diverse set of sensors distributed among them (writes Peter Donaldson). At DroNet ’16 in Singapore in June, Martin Rosalie and Serge Chaumette from the University of Bordeaux, along with Grégoire Danoy and Pascal Bouvry from the University of Luxembourg, described the ASIMUT project, whose name derives from its description as an aid to situation management based on multimodal, multi-UAV, multi-level acquisition techniques. ASIMUT is being conducted by a consortium involving Thales, Fraunhofer IOSB and Fly-n-Sense, and those universities with support from EDA members Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Development is focused on three components: a ground control system (GCS) that handles communications between the swarms and human situation managers, situational awareness, high-level data fusion and mission management; the high-level coordination swarms (HLCS) that manage tasks assigned by GCS or autonomously by the HLCS in response to situations; and low level swarms (LLS), which collect data and track objects such as vehicles. ASIMUT is arranged in three interlinked layers, each of which requires the development of enabling algorithms. The UAV collaboration layer is to optimise swarm flight planning in response to events; the detection layer is to define which vehicles are best for jobs chosen by the operator, according to the sensors they carry; and the data exploitation layer is to provide automatic target detection in full-motion video plus smart information management to improve operator workflow. These elements and their interactions are to be combined into a global framework and evaluated in simulations before any real-world deployment. Cooperative surveillance Swarming US company uAvionics has developed a low-power radio transceiver chip that allows ADS-B transponders to be small enough to fit onto almost any autonomous aircraft anywhere in the world (writes Nick Flaherty). The pingRX weighs only 1.5 g and has a built-in antenna for the US market. It receives ADS-B signals from other craft up to 100 miles away for avoidance purposes, and uses only 25 mW of power receiving on the 19090 MHz and 978 MHz bands. The company is also developing a dual- channel transceiver, the 20 g ping2020, that can transmit at 978 MHz for US airspace; its power consumption is 500 mW. An international version is being developed as well, with transmission at 1090 MHz and 978 MHz. The 30 g pingNAV adds a satellite navigation receiver so that position information can be included. The transponders link to the autopilot via the MAVlink (Micro Air Vehicle Link) protocol. The ping2020 uses an algorithm that generates a pseudo-random number for identifying the UAV, said Adam Paugh, business development manager at uAvionics. “Regulators are looking for a way to set it up in the same way as an aircraft with a squark code, but that’s not really there yet, so the ping2020 generates its own unique six-digit number in the airspace. “We are working with the developers of Ardupilot, and they are doing some very interesting work with MAVlink for a new module in their autopilot software to handle a range of sensors, but the first project is ADS-B with the ping sensor. If an aircraft comes close to the UAV, there is an alert, but if its ignored then the UAV goes into autopilot mode. Part of that will be assigning the static ID in Ardupilot and transmitting the identifier code.” ADS-B anywhere Navigation The pingRX weighs 1.5 g and receives ADS-B signals from other craft up to 100 miles away