Unmanned Systems Technology 033 l SubSeaSail Gen6 USSV l Servo actuators focus l UAVs insight l Farnborough 2020 update l Transforma XDBOT l Strange Development REVolution l Radio telemetry focus

82 T elemetry for unmanned systems is changing. While data transmission from UAVs and cars has previously been relatively simple, by relaying location and general system health information separately from payload data, the latest generation of UAVs aims to combine telemetry and payload data in a single radio link, to take advantage of packet radio technologies and the latest beam-steering and multiple-antenna designs. That makes the whole radio system more efficient. In driverless cars the requirements for telemetry are also changing. Rather than relaying system health information, operators of driverless car fleets are looking at using video feeds from the sensors in the cars for a number of applications. This video can be used to refine the machine learning algorithms that control the vehicle, or even allow a remote driver to take over. That would happen if the vehicle met a situation that the onboard controller could not handle, but it requires a high-capacity, low-latency link. Driverless cars This highlights one of the technology challenges for the radio links to driverless cars. There are two competing standards for these vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) and vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) links, with different levels of maturity and performance. A growing trend for combining different types of data in a single high-bandwidth link is spurring developments in radio technology. Nick Flaherty reports Gathering momentum August/September 2020 | Unmanned Systems Technology Combining telemetry and payload data in a single radio feed can bring efficiency advantages but needs careful consideration (Courtesy of Radionor)