Uncrewed Systems Technology 048 | Kodiak Driver | 5G focus | Tiburon USV | Skypersonic Skycopter and Skyrover | CES 2023 | Limbach L 2400 DX and L 550 EFG | NXInnovation NX 100 Enviro | Solar power focus | Protegimus Protection

Searching for the perfect engineering job in the uncrewed industry just got a whole lot easier uncrewedengineeringjobs.com Searching for the perfect engineering job in the uncrewed industry just got a whole lot easier Skypersonic Skycopter and Skyrover | In operation Santangelo explains that there are three layers to determining data link latency. The first is physics: for example, latencies will (probably) never be lower than light, which travels at nearly 300,000 km/s, so there will (probably) always be at least 10 ms of latency from uncrewed vehicle to GCS. The next is infrastructure, such as optical fibres and antennas. As a rule of thumb, Santangelo estimates that this multiplies the physics limitation by at least three, giving a minimum of 30 ms latency with currently available infrastructure technology. “The last key layer is the hardware and software stack, which is by far the biggest contributor to video and telemetry link latencies nowadays,” he says. Data processing algorithms must be heavily refined to be able to transmit large quantities of data such as HD video and other telemetry from the Skycopter or Skyrover in one direction while sending command signals from the GCS. The fidelity and latency of both sets of traffic are therefore key proof points being watched during the project. Localisation The versions of the Skycopter for the NASA project fly with a slightly longer (though variable) endurance compared with the standard-issue 14 minutes, as one of its modifications for CHAPEA includes a specifically lightened cage for increased flight times. “With regular customers, we recommend flights of nomore than 10 minutes so that they’re never at risk of losing power inmid-air, and with theMars analog project our UAVs tend to fly for 15minutes,” Santangelo says. “The rover by contrast can operate for up to 2 hours continuously, by virtue of integrating a bigger battery pack and not needing to constantly run four electricmotors or fly up and down. “That said, the Mars mission preparations will put more emphasis on Skycopter flights into the lava tubes than sending the rover into them, as it’s actually safer for the UAV to do it than risk the UGV falling off underground cliffs.” While the data links between astronaut and uncrewed vehicle can be supported through a reasonably small network of orbital satellites, be it over Earth or Mars, GNSS asmentionedwill probably not be available onMars for at least a fewdecades. As an alternative solution, Skypersonic’s Skyloc was developed in 2016 and consists of a series of beacons integrating ultrawideband technology, transmitting pulses at 6-9 GHz. This high frequency enables measurement of the distance between beacons through simple ping and response signals, which are accurate to a fewmillimetres. Such 3D triangulation concepts are already known as real-time locating systems (RTLSs) and are used in industrial contexts such as warehouses, hence Skypersonic’s use of it for the industrially focused Skycopter missions. Santangelo notes that SLAMmight have been used instead as a localisation method, andmight actually be less costly than an RTLS. However, RTLSs have been deployedwidely since the early 1990s, and have therefore had far more hours of use to prove their reliability than SLAM. They also allowmore real-time verification of integrity of course, since individual beacons can check each other; SLAMcurrently lacks this kind of internal verification. In future, the Skyloc beacons could be installed on the Skycopter and Skyrover, with the UGV’s basket and arm enabling it to carry and place beacons throughout Etna, as the Mars rovers will eventually do. Through this, personnel can monitor the UAV’s latitude and longitude in real time, just as they would with GNSS. Skypersonic’s data link provides a live, low- latency HD video feed from the Skycopter’s cameras, enabling live analyses of the terrain on Mt Etna, which is similar to that on Mars