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12 Platform one Safety in long-range civil unmanned vehicle operations will depend on reliable comms, which is the subject of a patent granted to UAV developer Olaeris (writes Peter Donaldson). Olaeris makes the AEVA ducted-fan VTOL UAV, which is designed to serve the linear infrastructure inspection and patrol, and package and cargo delivery markets. Now inventors Stefan De Nagy Koves Hrabar and Edward Lindsley have developed a system for it that exploits multiple bonded 3G/4G cellular, satellite, wi-fi or Wimax links. Bonding joins two or more comms links to increase throughput and provide redundancy. This approach increases bandwidth and adds redundancy by switching data transmissions between them according to a prioritisation scheme and measured link quality. It can, for example, prioritise safety-critical command, control and telemetry data over the video output from the payload, which is not safety-critical. Olaeris describes the system’s architecture and functionality as that of a “mobile device” that would be aboard the UAV or other unmanned vehicle, and a “control device” in a ground or other remote control station. Both devices would be able to detect missing packets and request re-sends. A representative mobile device would include analogue and digital video inputs, further inputs for data and configuration commands, plus data outputs. Its principal components would be an analogue-to-digital converter, a video encoder, separate packet stream generators for data and video, a packet inspector and prioritiser, a packet distributor, a network link monitor, a packet inspector and re- assembler plus multiple modems. The mobile device would be connected over the network to the control device, which would include a network port, another packet inspector and re- assembler and a video decoder. It would also accept configuration and data inputs from the ground control station, and provide data and video outputs to it. In operation, the mobile device would access data from vehicle systems and sensors, then identify different types of data it has received, assign a priority to each based on a prioritisation scheme chosen by the user, and then determine link status and quality for each comms device. With those steps complete, it would then route the data through the bonded comms link, following a distribution scheme designed to take data type priority and the quality of the link into account. Bonding to foster reliability Airborne vehicles December/January 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology UAV Components is developing a series of actuators, mini-servos and direct-drive motors with closed feedback for UAVs (writes Nick Flaherty). The feedback allows them to have encoders on their output shaft so that servo performance can be accurately controlled via a CAN or UART. This data can then be fed to the autopilot to highlight when a servo needs maintenance. The motors will have full encoders and inertial IMU with closed feedback control, while the servos will have their own microcontrollers and operating system. The mini-servos also include a metal gearbox with a power supply to take input from four lithium-polymer batteries at 17 V. Airborne vehicles Feedback from actuators Bonded comms links are to be added to the AEVA VTOL UAV