Recent studies have shown that with appropriate operator decision support and with sufficient automation, inverting the multiple operators to single-unmanned vehicle control paradigm is possible. These studies, however, have generally focused on homogeneous teams of vehicles, and have not completely addressed either the manifestation of heterogeneity in vehicle teams, or the effects of heteroge...

Registration of unmanned aircraft is a common policy around the world and forms part International Civil Aviation Organisation’s model regulations for aircraft. This study conducts review various registration policies that have been implemented amongst advanced economies to find commonalities differences. New Zealand then used as case study. The country does not currently aircraft; however, the...

In order to provide for the safe integration of unmanned aircraft systems into the National Airspace System, the control and non-payload communications (CNPC) link connecting the ground-based pilot with the unmanned aircraft must be highly reliable. A specific requirement is that it must operate using aviation safety radiofrequency spectrum. The 2012 World Radiocommunication Conference (WRC-12)...

This paper introduces a method to integrate Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) into a highly functional manned/ unmanned team through the design and implementation of 3D distributed formation/flight control algorithms with the goal to act as wingmen for a manned aircraft. The proposed algorithms are designed to increase UAS autonomy, dynamically modify formations, utilize standard operating forma...

This paper describes operator, flight, and in-water experiments with autonomy and human interface technologies for management of multiple unmanned air, sea surface, and undersea vehicles. The vehicles were managed by a single operator based on high-level mission objectives, constraints, risks, and priorities. The scenarios explored contingencies and changes in tasking that required both operato...

Unmanned forklifts have great potential to enhance the productivity of material handling in dangerous applications because these forklifts can pick up and deliver loads without an operator or any fixed guide. There are, however, many technical difficulties involved in developing unmanned forklifts including localization, map building, sensor fusion, and control. Recently, the NAV200 positioning...

Unmanned robotic vehicles are capable of performing desired tasks in unstructured, uncertain and potentially hostile environments. They may be remotely-operated or function (semi-) autonomously without human intervention. However, it will long before unmanned robot vehicles function as completely autonomous entities in diverse environments. Current unmanned vehicles adhere to different levels o...

This paper provides estimates for ambient noise levels that may be generated by future unmanned air traffic in low-altitude uncontrolled urban airspace. It is motivated by the need to assess the aural impact on communities from such large-scale close proximity unmanned aircraft operations. We simulate unmanned traffic over urban areas and estimate the noise footprint generated over a day. We co...

Cognitive Formation Flight in Multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Personal Remote Sensing Systems