To gain an understanding about what information requirements there are for future operators of autonomous drone swarms at airport, this study examined how work at airports is structured today, what staff at airports think about the potential implementation of autonomous drones, and what potential interface components that are necessary to be able to control these drones. Interviews and observations were made at five different airports and air traffic control towers with tower and ground staff. Based on the collected data a Cognitive Work Analysis (CWA) was made to understand the domain and a Thematic Analysis (TA) was made to understand the ideas regarding the drones. Finally, a workshop with fellow researchers was made to generate ideas about solutions and interface requirements, which was analyzed together with the CWA and TA. It was concluded that the main values of the system are to maintain Situational Awareness, Avoid collisions, and Keep time in order to ensure safe flight traffic. A major aspect to make this possible is communication. This was also a main factor for the implementation of autonomous drones, where it was considered important to know what the drones are doing and where they are. However, it was not always necessary for every person at the airport to have complete oversight and control over the drone, but having the possibility to gain that information was central. Having overview of the drones’ present activities, being able to see what they had done, being able to control them directly, and getting notified about relevant information were interface requirements identified. It was concluded that despite there being some constraints and challenges to implementing autonomous drones at airports, there are aspects that can be taken into account and information to be presented in the right way for the future operator to enable implementation of the autonomous drones at airports.

Examensarbetet presenterat i den här rapporten utfördes i syfte att kartlägga vilka sensorer och metoder som skulle kunna vara tillämpbara inom kartläggning av snölager i den arktiska regionen. För att göra den bedömningen har flera olika metoder använts. Intervjuer med experter inom relevanta områden hölls för att göra en initial kartläggning av vilken information som kan tänkas ligga till grund för det efterföljande steget, en kvantitativ regressionsanalys baserad på information insamlad genom systematisk analys av plattformar och sensorer som används i kartläggning baserad på fjärranalys. I denna analys identifierades relevanta korrelationsområden vilka sedan kunde analyseras närmare i en ’State of the art’-sammanställning av relevanta publikationer för att ge en rättvisande insyn i vilka metoder som finns tillgängliga och vad deras respektive styrkor och svagheter är. Slutligen genomfördes en flygning i syfte att praktiskt bedöma vilken kvalitet man kan uppnå i snökartläggning med enkelt tillgängliga konsumentprodukter. Resultaten pekar på att snökartläggning med drönare är ett lovande komplement till vanliga, manuella mätningar. Rekommendationer för vidare studier inkluderar komponentspecifika undersökningar, plattformsdesign och marknadskartläggning. / The thesis presented in this report was conducted to identify which sensors and methods could be applicable in the mapping of snow stocks in the Arctic region. To make that assessment, several different methods have been used. Interviews with experts in relevant areas were held to make an initial survey of what information might be the basis for the subsequent step, a quantitative regression analysis based on information collected through systematic review of the use of platforms and sensors in mapping by remote sensing. In this analysis, relevant correlation areas were identified, which could then be further analyzed in a state of the art compilation of relevant publications to provide a fair understanding of what methods are available and what their respective strengths and weaknesses are. Finally, a flight was carried out with a view to practically assessing what quality can be achieved in snow mapping with readily available consumer products. The results point out that snow mapping exploration with drones is a promising complement to manual measurements. Recommendations for further studies include component-specific surveys, platform design and market mapping.

No description available.

Peanut digging timing is difficult to predict due to indeterminate growth and peanut pods maturing underground, resulting in the need to research methods that provide consistent measurements, while reducing time and effort for farmers and researchers. Experiments were conducted to evaluate the accuracy of the Maturity Index 1 and Maturity Index 2 in predicting peanut grade, the accuracy of the North Carolina 2 degree day method in predicting peanut yield, and remote sensing vegetative indices sensitivity equivalence (SEq) to peanut Maturity Index 2 and harvest grade (TSMK) for cultivars IPG-914 and Georgia-06G in Mississippi. Maturity Index 1 and Maturity Index 2 were found to be inaccurate predictions of peanut grade in Mississippi, suggesting a need to examine the contributions of individual color classes in new genotypes to predict grade and yield. The North Carolina 2 degree day method was found to have a moderate to strong relationship with yield, indicating its potential usefulness in determining digging timing. Results also showed red edge indices were more sensitive to changes in pod maturity and grade. Peanut genotype selection is critical for maximizing peanut grade and yield on farm. Experiments were conducted to evaluate 32 genotypes for maturity, grade, and yield. Several early maturing genotypes showed promise for improving yield and grade without reducing quality, particularly 'UF11x23-3-6-1-1', '16-1-2147', '16-1-2142', '14x029-1-5-1-1', and '14x022-1-2-1-2'. The results suggest earlier maturing genotypes may be a solution to the late-season harvest risk of crop loss due to poor digging conditions, rain, and frost, while maintaining similar pod grades and yield to the current market-leading cultivars. The findings of this study contribute to the ongoing effort to optimize digging timing and improve peanut yields in Mississippi, where peanut farmers face the dual challenges of climatic variability and genotype selection. Future research is needed to examine the adaptability of genotypes on differing soil types, management, and climates throughout Mississippi. Overall, this study highlights the need for more effective and accurate methods for determining digging timing in peanut crops, which is crucial for their grade, and yield.

L'emploi de véhicules aériens sans pilote pour surveiller l'environnement entourant les navires militaires est une avenue intéressante pour contrecarrer des menaces potentielles. Cet ouvrage présente le banc d'essais développé pour l'évaluation et l'analyse comparative d'algorithmes de surveillance de cible. Un système vidéo commercial de poursuite de cible a été intégré à un système "hardware in the loop" (HIL) d'avion sans pilote afin de retrouver la position d'une cible dans un environnement virtuel 3D. La démarche pour l'évaluation de la position de la cible est présentée. Le système HIL utilisé, les modifications matérielles et logicielles apportées ainsi que la performance du système sont décrits. Des algorithmes de surveillance allant des plus simples comme la navigation circulaire aux plus complexes basés sur la commande prédictive sont présentés, simulés sur le système HIL et comparés. Les résultats de cette analyse permettent d'établir les lignes directrices d'une stratégie de guidage efficace.

No description available.

This thesis explores the ethical and legal implications of targeted killing operations employingCombat Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (CUAVs), focusing on the practices of the United Statesand Israel. Grounded in Just War Theory and international law, the research critically examineshow both nations justify these operations under the principles of self-defence and nationalsecurity. Through a comparative analysis of specific case studies, such as the assassinations ofQasem Soleimani and Baha Abu Al Ata, the study highlights the complexities of balancingsecurity imperatives with adherence to international humanitarian and human rights laws. Thefindings reveal significant ethical tensions, particularly concerning the principles ofproportionality, distinction, and the risk of extrajudicial killings. The lack of transparency andaccountability in drone operations further complicates their legitimacy. Additionally, itadvocates for comprehensive policy and legal reforms to enhance oversight and regulation,ensuring compliance with international standards and ethical norms. This research aims tocontribute to the ongoing discourse on modern military practices, urging a more just andaccountable framework for the use of lethal force in contemporary conflicts.

The proliferation of reusable space vehicles has fundamentally changed how we inject assets into orbit and beyond, increasing the reliability and frequency of launches. Leading to the rapid development and adoption of new technologies into the Aerospace sector, such as computer vision (CV), machine learning (ML), and distributed networking. All these technologies are necessary to enable genuinely autonomous decision-making for space-borne platforms as our spacecraft travel further into the solar system, and our missions sets become more ambitious, requiring true ``human out of the loop" solutions for a wide range of engineering and operational problem sets. Deployment of systems proficient at classifying, tracking, capturing, and ultimately manipulating orbital assets and components for maintenance and assembly in the persistent dynamic environment of space and on the surface of other celestial bodies, tasks commonly referred to as On-Orbit Servicing and In Space Assembly, have a unique automation potential. Given the inherent dangers of manned space flight/extravehicular activity (EVAs) methods currently employed to perform spacecraft construction and maintenance tasking, coupled with the current limitation of long-duration human flight outside of low earth orbit, space robotics armed with generalized sensing and control machine learning architectures is a tremendous enabling technology. However, the large amounts of sensor data required to adequately train neural networks for these space domain tasks are either limited or non-existent, requiring alternate means of data collection/generation. Additionally, the wide-scale tools and methodologies required for hardware in the loop simulation, testing, and validation of these new technologies outside of multimillion-dollar facilities are largely in their developmental stages. This dissertation proposes a novel approach for simulating space-based computer vision sensing and robotic control using both physical and virtual reality testing environments. This methodology is designed to both be affordable and expandable, enabling hardware in the loop simulation and validation of space systems at large scale across multiple institutions. While the focus of the specific computer vision models in this paper are narrowly focused on solving imagery problems found on orbit, this work can be expanded to solve any problem set that requires robust onboard computer vision, robotic manipulation, and free flight capabilities. / Doctor of Philosophy / The lack of real-world imagery of space assets and planetary surfaces required to train neural networks to autonomously identify, classify, and perform decision-making in these environments is either limited, none existent, or prohibitively expensive to obtain. Leveraging the power of the unreal engine, motion capture, and theatre projections technologies combined with robotics, computer vision, and machine learning to provide a means to recreate these worlds for the purpose of optical machine learning testing and validation for space and other celestial applications. This dissertation also incorporates domain randomization methods to increase neural network performance for the above mentioned applications.

[pt] O objetivo desta tese é abrir os olhos à violência contida na imagem enquanto agente semiótico-material da guerra contemporânea. No século XXI, o drone armado militar, uma arma imagem-centrada, tem encabeçado a curadoria geopolítica dos EUA no âmbito da guerra ao terror. Na esteira do emaranhado entre Washington e Hollywood, observa-se que a violência drônica guarda as mesmas características do cinema: imagem e movimento. Contudo, a imagem de um drone não é puramente o reflexo da natureza da guerra; ela é mais que representacional, é performativa. A partir do conceito de imagem-aniquilação, esta tese argumenta que a imagem possui uma agência destrutiva ao transitar da reflexão à difração (Haraway, 1992; Barad, 2007). Ao invés de espelhar a realidade, a imagem-aniquilação cria um brutal padrão de diferença no mundo. Trata-se de uma ontologia destrutiva na qual ver e aniquilar estão em estado de superposição. Logo, tudo aquilo que está enquadrado, está potencialmente morto. É dizer, ao enquadrar corpos e objetos no terreno, cria-se um estado de violência superposicional em que se está vivo, mas virtualmente morto. Tal movimento ocorre a partir de um forte apelo transdisciplinar, no qual a disciplina de Relações Internacionais (RI) é apoiada por conceitos e ideias da Filosofia, da História da Arte, dos Estudos Culturais e dos Estudos Fílmicos do cinema. A criação do conceito de imagem-aniquilação é fruto da combinação entre a filosofia de Gilles Deleuze (Deleuze e Guattari, 1996), entendida como prática que fabrica conceitos, e a abordagem de Michael Shapiro (2020), que busca extrair teoria política das imagens fílmicas. Para a realização desde exercício, aborda-se o filme Eye in the Sky (2015), do diretor Gavin Hood. A escolha desta obra cinematográfica advém da sua crítica amplamente positiva, bem como seu status como filme que revela a realidade da guerra de drones. Desse modo, esta tese contribui tanto para a compreensão dos imaginários sociotécnicos da guerra contemporânea a partir do continuum guerra-imagem-cinema, quanto para a inovação epistêmica e metodológica nas RI. / [en] The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the violence inherent in the image as a semiotic-material agent in contemporary warfare. In the 21st century, the armed military drone, an image-centered weapon, has spearheaded the geopolitical curatorship of the USA in the context of the war on terror. In the wake of the entanglement between Washington and Hollywood, it is observed that drone violence shares the same characteristics as cinema: image and movement. However, a drone s image is not purely a reflection of the nature of war; it is more than representational, it is performative. Building upon the concept of annihilation-image, this thesis argues that the image wields a destructive agency as it transitions from reflection to diffraction (Haraway, 1992; Barad, 2007). Rather than mirroring reality, annihilation-image creates a brutal pattern of difference in the world. It is a destructive ontology in which seeing and annihilating are in a state of superposition. Therefore, everything that is framed is potentially dead. That is to say, by framing bodies and objects in the terrain, a state of superpositional violence is created in which one is alive, but virtually dead. This movement is driven by a strong transdisciplinary appeal, in which the discipline of International Relations (IR) is informed by concepts and ideas from Philosophy, Art History, Cultural Studies, and Film Studies. The development of the concept of annihilation-image is the result of the combination of Gilles Deleuze s philosophy (Deleuze and Guattari, 1996), understood as a practice that create concepts, and Michael Shapiro s approach (2020), which seeks to extract political theory from cinematic images. For the purpose of this exercise, we examine the film Eye in the Sky (2015), directed by Gavin Hood. The choice of this cinematic work is derived from its widely positive critical acclaim, as well as its status as a film that exposes the reality of drone warfare. Thus, this thesis contributes to both the understanding of the sociotechnical imaginaries of contemporary warfare within the war-image-cinema continuum and to the epistemic and methodological innovation in (IR).

L'extraction des paramètres de surface est une activité essentielle des Sciences de la vie et de la Terre. Ce mémoire propose une nouvelle méthodologie pour l'analyse des paramètres biophysiques et géophysiques, appelée Réalité Terrain Étendue, et qui mêle les avantages des relevés terrain et de la télédétection. Nous nous sommes en particulier attachés aux avantages de la télédétection basse altitude et d'un système micro-drone multi-caméras pour la cartographie de la dynamique de la végétation à l'échelle des individus. Cette problématique pose de nombreuses contraintes sur notre système car l'identification des arbrisseaux nécessite des capteurs innovants et une adaptation aux cycles phénologiques pour améliorer leur capacité de discrimination. La télédétection basse altitude semble être une solution intéressante en terme de résolution spatiale et de souplesse opérationnelle, et le développement des micro-drones civils permet des outils d'autant plus performants et fiables pour les missions terrain. Nous avons donc mis en place un système complet de drone avec une charge utile spécifique emportant simultanément trois appareils photographiques pour l'acquisition à la demande d'images obliques, stéréoscopiques ou multispectrales et permettant le développement de nouvelles méthodes d'identification de la végétation. Enfin, en participant à un relevé terrain du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, nous avons validé l'intérêt de notre système pour la cartographie de la dynamique de la végétation. Ce travail s'ouvre sur de nombreuses applications et perspectives de recherche, comme l'extraction de paramètres biophysiques par stéréo-restitution et l'agriculture de précision / Retrieval of land surface parameters is an essential part of life and Earth sciences activities, as they are the key to understand the complex phenomena that take place in the biosphere. This thesis proposes a new methodology for biophysical and geophysical surface para-meters analysis, that we call Extended Ground Truth, and that mix the advantages of the field ope-rations and those of remote sensing. We have especially focused our work on the benefits of low altitude remote sensing with a multi-cameras Unmanned Aerial System for vegetation dynamics mapping at subject scale. This problematic raises strong constraints on the system, as the identification of small bushes implies new type of sensors and the adaptation to the phenological cycles to improve the discrimination capacity of the sensors. Low altitude remote sensing seems a good solution in terms of resolution and operational flexibility and the technical revolution behind the spreading of civilian micro-UAV allows all the more capable and reliable tools for field operations. We therefore developed an Unmanned Aerial System with a specific payload that can lift up three digital cameras at once, allowing on demand oblique, stereoscopic or multispectral synchronous acquisitions and thus the development of new identification methods of the vegetation. Finally, we have participated in a field operation on a test site of the National Natural History Museum and confirmed the interest of our tool for vegetation dynamics mapping. This work leads to many other researches, per example in the field of biophysical parameters extraction from stereoscopic images, and other application fields like precision farming