AAE 451 – Aircraft Senior Design



AAE 451 – Aircraft Senior Design

Spring 2007

Continuous Area Coverage via Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Systems

System Requirements Review

Team 3

Sumitero Darsono

Charles Hagenbush

Keith Higdon

Seung-il Kim

Matt Lewis

Matt Richter

Jeff Tippmann

Alex Zaubi

I. Description and overview of proposed system

The unmanned aerial system (UAS) will not be just one plane but will consist of a system of multiple aircraft and support equipment that will work in conjunction to provide continuous aerial coverage over about a five mile radius. The aircraft will house a small payload consisting of a video camera, a thermo imaging camera, or a chemical detector. The aircraft will either have a module payload or will carry all of the payload types simultaneously depending upon the final payload weight and the weight of the cameras. The aircraft itself will be a micro unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that is able to be hand launched and carried in a military style backpack. The entire system will be transportable by two or three people depending on the number of aircraft needed. The support equipment is very limited and will consist of a small transmission unit and a laptop to program waypoints and to view the incoming video feeds. The aircraft and transmission equipment will both be portable so that they can be used anywhere that surveillance is necessary.

II. Customers, Competition, and Market

The proposed system will be geared toward a surveillance market, which includes mainly military and law enforcement personnel. The military will deploy the system UAS out of either a backpack when on foot or out of a Humvee when traveling. The main uses for the UAS by the military will be for surveillance around a temporary base or convoy or for forward reconnaissance. Law enforcement will deploy the UAS out of the back of a squad car. The main use for law enforcement will be for assessing a hazardous situation before committing personnel or to provide continuous surveillance of large groups.

Currently, there exist several vehicles of less than 10 pounds takeoff weight that have proven successful and will compete with the proposed aircraft in the military sector. Figure 1 below shows the capabilities of several successful vehicles in this class9.

[pic]

[pic] [pic] [pic] [pic] [pic]

Figure 1: Capabilities of the competition with pictures of each aircraft below

For law enforcement applications, there are a few vehicles of this class that are currently in development, but none that have been as successful as the military UAVs. Farsight Intelligence Systems and Octran are both developing systems for this market. Shown below in Figure 2 are the Raider and the Marauder by Farsight and the Skyseer by Octran. As these systems are currently in development, many of their capabilities are still unknown or not disclosed.

Raider Marauder Skyseer

[pic] [pic] [pic]

Figure 2: UAVs currently in development for law enforcement

Since the beginning of the War on Terror, the market for small Unmanned Aerial Systems for the military sector has grown dramatically. Due advances in sensors, materials and batteries the mission capabilities of small UAVs are ever increasing. Combined with the changing scope of warfare, current small UA systems are seeing more and more use in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and the United States military has decided to invest substantially in similar systems. Shown below in Figure 3 is the number of small UA systems, less than 10 pounds takeoff weight, which the United States military plans to purchase, as of 20059.

\

Figure 3: Number of small UA systems to be purchased by US military (as of 2005)

From Figure 3, the Dragon Eye and the Raven, both made by AeroVironment, currently dominate the military small UAV market. The success of these systems in Iraq and Afghanistan has prompted the armed forces to allocate resources for the continued development of small UA systems. Figure 4 below shows the Department of Defense’s projected budget for procuring small UA systems9.

Figure 4: DoD budget for procuring small ( ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download