Unmanned Systems Technology 022 | XOcean XO-450 l Radar systems l Space vehicles insight l Small Robot l BMPower FCPS l Prismatic HALE UAV l InterDrone 2018 show report l UpVision l Navigation systems

8 Platform one October/November 2018 | Unmanned Systems Technology IBM wants to use the blockchain technology that verifies and secures transactions in digital crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin for securing UAV operations against interference (writes Peter Donaldson). The company’s application for a US patent (2018/0270244 A1) was published on 20 September. Blockchain relies on a network of computing nodes to maintain an open distributed ledger that can record and verify transactions between parties efficiently and permanently. That means the record cannot be altered later without altering all subsequent blocks and the consensus of the network. Any blocks about which there is a disagreement between nodes do not make it into the chain. The blocks themselves are groups of verified transactions, each of which contains a cryptographic link to the previous block in the form of a one-way mathematical function – known as a hash – which is used to map data of an arbitrary size onto data of a fixed size. In crypto-currencies, the main purpose Septentrio has unveiled the AsteRx-i S, a new version of its AsteRx-i GNSS board designed for direct IMU integration with the Micro-Ellipse inertial sensor from SBG Systems (writes Rory Jackson). It gives a position update rate of up to 100 Hz, as well as outputting the UAV’s horizontal position within 0.3 m of error during 10 s of GNSS signal outages (in excess of typical error). “The AsteRx-i S is similar in principle to the AsteRx-i V, which used a VectorNav is to prevent fraud such as spending the same digital coins twice. In the UAV context, those transactions can be comms between the vehicle and a remote control system, and can contain a record of the vehicle’s recent activities, or even its entire operational history. Information in the record might include location, elevation, make and model, identification data, and contextual information such as weather conditions or proximity to restricted areas or exclusion zones. IMU to improve navigation quality,” said Septentrio product manager Francesca Clemente. “However, both integrated solutions use our proprietary GNSS/INS algorithmic engine to fuse data from the AsteRx-i board and the IMU for position, velocity and attitude. “The engine has been key for hitting the performance targets we set for the AsteRx-i receivers with the industrial- grade IMUs we’ve hoped to integrate.” The update rate of the dual antenna multi-frequency receiver gears it towards The computer aboard a UAV would act as a data source that communicates with the computer that serves as the initial node in the blockchain network. In this way, data provided by the UAV and commands sent to it can be verified, and any vehicles behaving suspiciously can be identified by multiple nodes on the network, says IBM. As blockchain is very demanding on computing power, however, there are questions about latency in the network and energy consumption. precision survey and photogrammetric missions that need orientation tracking for the vehicle and payload. Blockchain for UAVs? Satcom board updated Airborne vehicles Navigation A patent has been issued for using blockchain technology to control UAVs Septentrio’s new GNSS board has an update rate of 100 Hz