cooperating autonomous aerial vehicles integrated with...

04/12/2008

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The AWARE project

http://www.aware-project.net© AWARE consortium

AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Cooperating autonomous aerial vehicles

integrated with ground wireless sensors

networks

Escuela Superior de Ingenieros

AICIA- Universidad de Sevilla (Spain)

[email protected]

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Outline

• AWARE

• System architecture from a middleware perspective

• Ground Wireless Sensor Network

• Load transportation system

• Architecture for cooperation of aerial platforms

• AWARE functionalities

• Experiments

• Conclusions and future work

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

AWARE: Motivation

• How to integrate robotic systems (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) with wireless sensor and actuator networks?– UAVs as mobile nodes:

• Providing additional information,

• Improving/repairing the connectivity

• Collecting information (data mules)

– WSNs as an extension of the sensorial capabilities of the robots

• How to perform where there is no communication infrastructure or when the communication infrastructure is damaged?.

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Design, development and experimentation of a platform providing the middleware and all the functionalities required for the cooperation of aerial flying objects, i.e. autonomous helicopters, with a ground sensor-actuator wireless network, including ground mobile nodes carried by persons and vehicles.

Self deployment for the operation in sites with difficult or impossible access and without communication infrastructure.

AWARE: General objective

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Disaster Management/Civil Security Filming

Exploration, detection, localisation, deployment, monitoring and tracking, reactivity

Tracking, integration of information from WSN

AWARE: Validation

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Coordinator:

� AICIA-UNIV. SEVILLE (SPAIN).

Partners:

� TUB-TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITAET BERLIN (GERMANY)

� FC- FLYING-CAM SA (BELGIUM)

� UT- UNIVERSITEIT TWENTE (THE NEDERLANDS)

� USTUTT- UNIVERSITÄT STUTTGART (GERMANY)

� SELEX – SENSORS AND AIRBORNE SYSTEMS LIMITED (UNITED KINGDOM).

� ITURRI, S.A. (SPAIN).

� UBONN- UNIVERSITÄT BONN (GERMANY

U Bonn

AWARE: Partners expertise and resources

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

System architecture from a middleware perspective

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

System architecture from a middleware perspective

Research on gateway cooperation:

• Top down Voronoi Tessellation

• Botton-Up: Convex groups

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Ground Wireless Sensor Networks

• Distributed fuzzy logic reasoning engine for event detection

• Networking protocols

– Medium access control

• Mobile-LMAC

• Added local broadcast functionality for D-FLER

• Connectivity information is collected

– Routing

• Gradient-based routing

• Implemented multiple data sinks

• Data is routed to closest sink

• Connectivity and deployment

– Funke’s algorithm to centrally detect routing holes• Principle: create iso-hop clusters, detect border nodes

Object or

routing hole

Iso-hop cluster

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Load transportation system

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

• Translation: Consideration of the translation dynamic of whole system (mass points approximation to produce): coupled and decoupled control

• Orientation: Consideration of the complete dynamics of the whole system

(coupled helicopters and load).

Rope force sensing for decoupling.

The orientation controller becames independent of number of helicopters


The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)


Validation with 3 UAVs

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Architecture for cooperation of aerial platforms

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)


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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)


The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

AWATE Functionalities: Cooperative tracking

• Objectives:

– Localize and track the position of targets (mobile nodes)

– The motion of the targets is completely unknown.

• Main problems using images: Visibility, Image processing, Reliability.

• Main problems using the RSSI: Delayed RSSI measures, RSSI/distance is an inaccurate model, Non-gaussian initial estimation.

• Approach: Decentralized perception

– Allow reducing requirements on data transmission.

– Divide the processing load among different nodes.

– Increase the robustness.

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

– One perception software for each aware entity (GCNs, UAVS and WSN).– Implementation based on Extended Information Filter (EIF): easy to integratemeasurements, including delayed, low computation.

– All perception events are represented by its estimated position and velocity in mean andstandard deviation, and other information.

– An EIF is implemented in each perception software instance to fuse they ownestimation of the event and the information gather from the rest of systems

– The EIF prediction is also used by the local processing software to improve the detection/tracking.

AWATE Functionalities: Cooperative tracking

PSS-1

PSS-4

PSS-3

GCN 1

GCN 2

UAV 1

PSS-2

WSN

gateway

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

AWARE functionalities: Fire detection & confirmation

• Fire detection by means wireless sensor network installed in the building

• Fire confirmation trough image processing integration:– Cameras on ground

– Cameras mounted on the UAVs

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

• Good position estimation of mobile robots can be used to localize WSN nodes

• Key idea: To have onboard the robot one node and “project” the position of the node to the WSN through the signal strength.

• Characterization of the model RSSI-distance– Gaussian only for a given distance– Application of particle filters (non-gaussian distribution)

– Represent the posterior density at time k: p(xk |z1:k) by independent and identically distributed particles {xk

(i) } each with a weight ωωωωk(i)

– Likelihood function p(zk | xk): probability of obtaining a given value of RSSI on the on-board node at position xk

r given the position of the emitter xk.

• Position refinement by means of the Extended Information Filter (distributed implementation

AWARE functionalities: Network localization

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

AWARE functionalities: Network localization

• Outdoor experiment with a helicopter and a smallsensor network.

• Nodes localized within 2 meters error

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Experiments: Experiments area

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Experiments: Experiments area

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Experiments: Cooperative tracking & fire monitoring

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Experiments: Fire extinguishing

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The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

Conclusions and further developments

• Cooperation of multiple aerial vehicles offers many application possibilities– Load transportation– Cooperative detection, localization and tracking– Cooperation with ground robots and autonomous systems in general.– New efficient fully distributed architectures– Improve communication– Safety is a main issue

• Integration of UAVs and WSN technologies very promising: – Coverage, – Deployment, Cooperative detection, localization and tracking, – Integration is in its early stages: New integration paradigms.

– Self-deployment needs more attention: many future possibilities• New applications: security, environment monitoring, air traffic control, ………

The AWARE project


AWARE (IST-2006-33579)

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cooperating autonomous aerial vehicles integrated with...

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