Mini unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) have high significance among other UAV&#039 / s, in different categories, due to their ease of production, flexibility of maintenance, decrease in weight due to the elimination of landing gear system and simplicity of use. They are usually built to meet &#039 / hand launching&#039 / and &#039 / belly landing&#039 / criteria in order to have easy flight and easy landing features. Due to the hand take-off and belly landing features there is no need to have a runway and this feature is a very significant advantage in operational use. In an operation, belly landing mini UAV&#039 / s may encounter tough landing areas like gravel, concrete or hard soil. Such landing areas may create landing loads which are impulsive in character. The effect of the landing loads on the airframe of the mini unmanned air vehicle must be completely understood and the mini UAV be designed accordingly in order not to damage the mini UAV during belly landing. Typical impact speeds during belly landing is relatively low (&lt / 10 m/s) and in general belly landing phenomenon can be treated as low velocity impact. The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact loads on the composite substructures of a mini UAV due to the belly landing. &#039 / G&uuml / vent&uuml / rk&#039 / Mini UAV which is designed and built in METU Aerospace Engineering Department, is used as the analysis platform. This study is limited to the calculation of stresses and deformation that is caused by the low velocity impact forces encountered during belly landing. The main purpose of this work is to help the designer in making design decisions for a mini UAV that is tolerable to low velocity impact loads. Initial part of the thesis includes analytical treatment of low velocity impact phenomenon. In the simplified analytical approach the loading is assumed as quasistatic and comparisons of such a simplified method of analysis is made with explicit finite element solutions on isotropic and composite plate structures to investigate the applicability of simplified analytical method of analysis. Belly landing analyses of the mini UAV are done by MSC.Dytran, which is an explicit finite element solver. Model building and post processing are done via MSC.Patran. Stress and deformation response of the mini UAV is investigated by performing low velocity impact analysis using sub-structure built-up approach.

Prohibited means and methods of armed conflicts The goal of this diploma thesis is to analyse more frequent use of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV) in armed conflicts under the international humanitarian law. Although the idea to use UAV is not new, there has been a boom of their deployment in last two decades. Technological progress, the transformation of the nature of armed conflicts and the idea of the war on terror are the main reasons why UAVs have become an indispensable tool in war equipment of all the main world's armies. But just like every new technology, also UAVs raise questions about their legality. Therefore, this work aims to assess whether UAVs may represent prohibited mean of warfare or whether their usage is not in contrary to international humanitarian law. The main text of this diploma thesis consists of five main thematic blocks. The first chapter represents an excursion into the history and development of international humanitarian law. It outlines its division into two branches, the Geneva and Haague law. In addition the first part also defines its position within public international law and its interaction with international law of human rights. The second part consists of definitions of basic terms which the norms of international humanitarian law operate with. The first of them...

There are many applications for which small unmanned aerial vehicles (SUAVs) are well suited, including surveillance, reconnaissance, search and rescue, convoy support, and short-range low-altitude perimeter patrol missions. As technologies for microcontrollers and small sensors have improved, so have the capabilities of SUAVs. These improvements in SUAV performance increase the possibility for hazardous missions through mountainous and urban terrain in the successful completion of many of these missions. The focus of this research was on remote terrain navigation and the issues faced when dealing with limited onboard processing and limited payload and power capabilities. Additional challenges associated with canyon and urban navigation missions included reactive path following, sensor noise, and flight test design and execution. The main challenge was for an SUAV to successfully navigate through a mountainous canyon by reactively altering its own preplanned path to avoid canyon walls and other stationary obstacles. A robust path following method for SUAVs that uses a vector field approach to track functionally curved paths is presented along with flight test results. In these results, the average tracking error for an SUAV following a variety of curved paths is 3.4~m for amplitudes ranging between 10 and 100~m and spatial periods between 125 and 500~m. Additionally, a reactive path following method is presented that allows a UAV to continually offset or bias its planned path as distance information from the left and right ranging sensors is computed. This allows the UAV to to center itself between potential hazards even with imperfect waypoint path planning. Flight results of an SUAV reactively navigating through mountainous canyons experimentally verify the feasibility of this approach. In a flight test through Goshen Canyon in central Utah, an SUAV biased its planned path by 3 to 10~m to the right as it flew to center itself through the canyon and avoid the possibility of crashing into a canyon wall.

UAVs have become an essential tool in many market segments, particularly the military where critical intelligence can be gathered by them. A tailsitter aircraft is a platform whose purpose is to efficiently merge the range and endurance of fixed-wing aircraft with the VTOL capabilities of rotorcraft and is of significant value in applications where launch and recovery area is limited or the use of launch and recovery equipment is not desirable. Developing autopilot software for a tailsitter UAV is unique in that the aircraft must be autonomously controlled over a much wider range of attitudes than conventional UAVs. Assumptions made in conventional estimation and control algorithms are not valid for tailsitter aircraft because of routine operation around gimbal lock. Quaternions are generally employed to overcome the limitations Euler angles; however, adapting the attitude representation to work at a full range of attitudes is only part of the solution. Kalman filter measurement updates and control algorithms must also work at any orientation. This research presents several methods of incorporating a magnetometer measurement into an extended Kalman filter. One method combines magnetometer and accelerometer sensor data using the solution to Wahba's problem to calculate an overall attitude measurement. Other methods correct only heading error and include using two sets of Euler angles to update the estimate, using quaternions to determine heading error and Euler angles to update the estimate, and using only quaternions to update the estimate. Quaternion feedback attitude control is widely used in tailsitter aircraft. This research also shows that in spite of its effective use in spacecraft, using the attitude error calculated via quaternions to drive flight control surfaces may not be optimal for tailsitters. It is shown that during hover when heading error is present, quaternion feedback can cause undesired behavior, particularly when the heading error is large. An alternative method for calculating attitude error called resolved tilt-twist is validated, improved, and shown to perform better than quaternion feedback. Algorithms are implemented on a commercially available autopilot and validation is performed using hardware in loop simulation. A custom interface is used to receive autopilot commands and send the autopilot simulated sensor information. The final topic covered deals with the tailsitter hovering in wind. As the tailsitter hovers, wind can cause the tailsitter to turn such that the wind is perpendicular to the wings. Wind tunnel data is taken and analyzed to explain this behavior.

As the market for unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) rapidly expands, the need for algorithmsthat improve the capabilities of those vehicles is also growing. One valuable capability for UAVsis that of persistent tracking—the ability to find and track another moving object, usually on theground, from an aerial platform. This thesis presents a method for tracking multiple ground targetsfrom an airborne camera. Moving objects on the ground are detected by using frame-to-frameregistration. The detected objects are then tracked using the newly developed recursive RANSACalgorithm. Much video tracking work has focused on using appearance-based processing for tracking,with some approaches using dynamic trackers such as Kalman filters. This work demonstratesa fusion of computer vision and dynamic tracking to increase the ability of an unmanned air platformto identify and robustly track moving targets. With a C++ implementation of the algorithmsrunning on the open source Robot Operating System (ROS) framework, the system developed iscapable of processing 1920x1080 resolution video at over seven frames per second on a desktopcomputer.

No description available.

O advento dos veículos aéreos não tripulados (VANTs) representa uma quebra de paradigma no ramo aeronáutico. São revisados os conceitos de projeto envolvidos no desenvolvimento de VANTs e levantadas as suas potenciais aplicações. São também analisadas as características de sua operação e discutidas as questões regulatórias envolvidas na certificação e integração dos VANTs ao tráfego aéreo civil. Dentre as várias características singulares dos VANTs, enfatiza-se a sua necessidade de realizar vôos a grande altitude e com longa autonomia. Isso leva ao emprego de materiais mais leves e configurações com asas de grande alongamento, que provocam menor arrasto induzido. É feita uma revisão sobre materiais compósitos, que são materiais de uso crescente no ramo aeronáutico por sua leveza e resistência, e que por sua característica de anisotropia, são suscetíveis à otimização estrutural. Métodos e ferramentas de otimização estrutural de compósitos laminados ainda são pouco empregados, por suas características discretas e pelo grande número de parâmetros envolvidos. Um método eficiente e adequado à otimização de um problema desse tipo é o método dos algoritmos genéticos (AG). Assim foi desenvolvida uma sub-rotina de otimização baseada em algoritmos genéticos, usando a linguagem de programação Fortran. A sub-rotina desenvolvida trabalha em conjunto com um programa comercial de análise estrutural baseado no método dos elementos finitos, o Ansys. Foi também proposta uma configuração de asa de um VANT típico, de grande alongamento e fabricada com materiais compósitos reforçados com fibras (CRF). A asa proposta teve o número e a orientação das camadas do laminado otimizadas com o uso da sub-rotina desenvolvida, e resultados satisfatórios foram encontrados. Foram também analisados os efeitos da variação dos parâmetros dos operadores do AG, como probabilidades de mutação, cruzamento, tipo de escalonamento, entre outros, no desempenho do mesmo. Também foram feitas otimizações no mesmo modelo de asa proposto, empregando outros métodos disponíveis no próprio programa de análise estrutural. Os resultados das otimizações através desses métodos foram comparados com os resultados obtidos com a sub-rotina desenvolvida / The advent of the unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) represents a paradigm break in the aeronautical field. The project concepts involved in the development of UAVs are revised and its potential applications are rose. Also the issues related to UAVs operation are assessed and the regulatory questions involved in their certification and integration to the civil air space are argued. Amongst many singular characteristics of the UAV, its necessity of performing flights at high altitudes and with long endurance is emphasized. This leads to the employment of lighter materials and to configurations with high aspect ratio wings that cause minor induced drag. A revision on composite materials, which are of increasing use in the aeronautical field for their lightness and strength, and that are appropriate for being optimized due to their anisotropy characteristics, is made. Methods and tools of structural optimization of laminated composites are still seldom employed, due to their discrete nature and to the large number of parameters involved. An efficient and suitable method for the optimization of this kind of problem is the genetic algorithm (GA). Thus, an optimization sub-routine based on genetic algorithms was developed, using FORTRAN programming language. The developed sub-routine works in combination with Ansys, a structural analysis commercial program based on the finite elements method. A configuration of a typical UAV wing, made from composite reinforced plastics (CRP) was also proposed. The proposed wing had the number of plies and the orientations of its layers optimized using the developed sub-routine, and satisfactory results had been found. Also the effect of the variation of AG’s operator parameters in its performance, as mutation probabilities, crossover probabilities, fitness scaling, among others, have been assessed. The same wing model considered was also optimized using other build-in methods of the structural analysis program. The results of these optimizations have been compared with the results obtained with the developed sub-routine

In this thesis, energy optimal route of an unmanned solar powered air vehicle is obtained for the given mission constraints in order to sustain the maximum energy balance. The mission scenario and the constraints of the solar powered UAV are defined. Equations of motion are obtained for the UAV with respect to the chosen structural properties and aerodynamic parameters to achieve the given mission. Energy income and loss equations that state the energy balance, up to the position of the UAV inside the atmosphere are defined. The mathematical model and the cost function are defined according to the mission constraints, flight mechanics and energy balance equations to obtain the energy optimal path of the UAV. An available optimal control technique is chosen up to the mathematical model and the cost function in order to make the optimization. Energy optimal path of the UAV is presented with the other useful results. Optimal route and the other results are criticized by checking them with the critical positions of the sun rays.

Darbe analizuojama akustinės regos sistema (ARS) skirta specializuotiems bepiločiams skraidantiems aparatams (BSA) apribotoje erdvėje. Aprašyti esami ir kuriami bepiločiai skraidantys aparatai. Parinkus atitinkamus elementus sudaryta tokios ARS elektrinė principinė schema. Pateiktas valdymo algoritmas. / In this graduate work acoustics vision system of unmanned air vehicle (UAV) is projected. It fit to control UAV in the limit space (pipeline). The operating algorithm of the effect of control system is created and this system construction is analyzed. In the closing part of this graduate work conclusions are formulated and the content of the sources is given. The graphical part of this work covers tables of element’s, control system functional schemes and principal electrical schemes of aforesaid control system.

O advento dos veículos aéreos não tripulados (VANTs) representa uma quebra de paradigma no ramo aeronáutico. São revisados os conceitos de projeto envolvidos no desenvolvimento de VANTs e levantadas as suas potenciais aplicações. São também analisadas as características de sua operação e discutidas as questões regulatórias envolvidas na certificação e integração dos VANTs ao tráfego aéreo civil. Dentre as várias características singulares dos VANTs, enfatiza-se a sua necessidade de realizar vôos a grande altitude e com longa autonomia. Isso leva ao emprego de materiais mais leves e configurações com asas de grande alongamento, que provocam menor arrasto induzido. É feita uma revisão sobre materiais compósitos, que são materiais de uso crescente no ramo aeronáutico por sua leveza e resistência, e que por sua característica de anisotropia, são suscetíveis à otimização estrutural. Métodos e ferramentas de otimização estrutural de compósitos laminados ainda são pouco empregados, por suas características discretas e pelo grande número de parâmetros envolvidos. Um método eficiente e adequado à otimização de um problema desse tipo é o método dos algoritmos genéticos (AG). Assim foi desenvolvida uma sub-rotina de otimização baseada em algoritmos genéticos, usando a linguagem de programação Fortran. A sub-rotina desenvolvida trabalha em conjunto com um programa comercial de análise estrutural baseado no método dos elementos finitos, o Ansys. Foi também proposta uma configuração de asa de um VANT típico, de grande alongamento e fabricada com materiais compósitos reforçados com fibras (CRF). A asa proposta teve o número e a orientação das camadas do laminado otimizadas com o uso da sub-rotina desenvolvida, e resultados satisfatórios foram encontrados. Foram também analisados os efeitos da variação dos parâmetros dos operadores do AG, como probabilidades de mutação, cruzamento, tipo de escalonamento, entre outros, no desempenho do mesmo. Também foram feitas otimizações no mesmo modelo de asa proposto, empregando outros métodos disponíveis no próprio programa de análise estrutural. Os resultados das otimizações através desses métodos foram comparados com os resultados obtidos com a sub-rotina desenvolvida / The advent of the unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) represents a paradigm break in the aeronautical field. The project concepts involved in the development of UAVs are revised and its potential applications are rose. Also the issues related to UAVs operation are assessed and the regulatory questions involved in their certification and integration to the civil air space are argued. Amongst many singular characteristics of the UAV, its necessity of performing flights at high altitudes and with long endurance is emphasized. This leads to the employment of lighter materials and to configurations with high aspect ratio wings that cause minor induced drag. A revision on composite materials, which are of increasing use in the aeronautical field for their lightness and strength, and that are appropriate for being optimized due to their anisotropy characteristics, is made. Methods and tools of structural optimization of laminated composites are still seldom employed, due to their discrete nature and to the large number of parameters involved. An efficient and suitable method for the optimization of this kind of problem is the genetic algorithm (GA). Thus, an optimization sub-routine based on genetic algorithms was developed, using FORTRAN programming language. The developed sub-routine works in combination with Ansys, a structural analysis commercial program based on the finite elements method. A configuration of a typical UAV wing, made from composite reinforced plastics (CRP) was also proposed. The proposed wing had the number of plies and the orientations of its layers optimized using the developed sub-routine, and satisfactory results had been found. Also the effect of the variation of AG’s operator parameters in its performance, as mutation probabilities, crossover probabilities, fitness scaling, among others, have been assessed. The same wing model considered was also optimized using other build-in methods of the structural analysis program. The results of these optimizations have been compared with the results obtained with the developed sub-routine