Issue 40 Unmanned Systems Technology October/November 2021 ANYbotics ANYmal D l AI systems focus l Aquatic Drones Phoenix 5 l Space vehicles insight l Sky Eye Rapier X-25 l FlyingBasket FB3 l GCS focus l AUVSI Xponential 2021

14 Platform one Dr Donough Wilson Dr Wilson is innovation lead at aviation, defence, and homeland security innovation consultants, VIVID/futureVision. His defence innovations include the cockpit vision system that protects military aircrew from asymmetric high-energy laser attack. He was first to propose the automatic tracking and satellite download of airliner black box and cockpit voice recorder data in the event of an airliner’s unplanned excursion from its assigned flight level or track. For his ‘outstanding and practical contribution to the safer operation of aircraft’ he was awarded The Sir James Martin Award 2018/19, by the Honourable Company of Air Pilots. Paul Weighell Paul has been involved with electronics, computer design and programming since 1966. He has worked in the real-time and failsafe data acquisition and automation industry using mainframes, minis, micros and cloud-based hardware on applications as diverse as defence, Siberian gas pipeline control, UK nuclear power, robotics, the Thames Barrier, Formula One and automated financial trading systems. Ian Williams-Wynn Ian has been involved with unmanned and autonomous systems for more than 20 years. He started his career in the military, working with early prototype unmanned systems and exploiting imagery from a range of unmanned systems from global suppliers. He has also been involved in ground- breaking research including novel power and propulsion systems, sensor technologies, communications, avionics and physical platforms. His experience covers a broad spectrum of domains from space, air, maritime and ground, and in both defence and civil applications including, more recently, connected autonomous cars. Professor James Scanlan Professor Scanlan is the director of the Strategic Research Centre in Autonomous Systems at the University of Southampton, in the UK. He also co-directs the Rolls-Royce University Technical Centre in design at Southampton. He has an interest in design research, in particular how complex systems (especially aerospace systems) can be optimised. More recently, he established a group at Southampton that undertakes research into unmanned aircraft systems. He produced the world’s first ‘printed aircraft’, the SULSA, which was flown by the Royal Navy in the Antarctic in 2016. He also led the team that developed the ULTRA platform, the largest UK commercial UAV, which has flown BVLOS extensively in the UK. He is a qualified full-size aircraft pilot and also has UAV flight qualifications. Unmanned Systems Technology’s consultants A UK project is developing an unmanned ground vehicle for hostile environments based around automotive-grade parts and an FPGA board (writes Nick Flaherty). A Rover Pro system, from Rover Robotics, has been adapted with flipper tracks to enable it to move over post-blast terrain in quarries when the conditions are too dangerous for people. The tracks also allow the UGV to climb stairs. The system is based around the VCS-1 FPGA board from Sundance, with RealSense D435i and D435 depth-sensing cameras from Intel. A GPS unit supports an IMU, with power from an ATX power supply. The system has been designed to make it simple to add new modules and sensors. The FPGA allows custom algorithms for machine learning to be implemented with modules connected via a USB-C interface. The cameras enable the UGV to obtain data about its surroundings. The D435 has an RGB image channel and a depth channel, while the D435i carries the IMU. The cameras can be installed so that they point in opposite orientations and can be enabled according to the direction of motion. Camera data can also be used to feed AI inference software based on a custom pre-trained neural network to detect the objects, with autonomous control software from GMV Innovating Solutions. The system is part of a project called ARISE (Autonomous Robotic InSpEction) that aims to implement autonomous surveys of geotechnical conditions during the normally unproductive period immediately after a blast, when workers vacate the mine to avoid post-blast fumes and the risk of rockfalls. The system is being developed as a commercial product, and uses parts with automotive qualification because of their higher reliability. UGV keeps things simple Ground vehicles October/November 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology The UGV has been designed to make it easy to add new modules and sensors