A Journey into Unmanned Systems

In this activity, you will develop a response to the following: Natural disasters such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and wildfires have a devastating impact on communities where these events occur.  Lives are lost, citizens are injured, and infrastructure and property are destroyed. In the aftermath resources are limited, while the response and recovery is hampered by reduced communications and infrastructure damage.  Propose a series of derived/low-level requirements for the design of a UAS down to the element level (e.g., air vehicle element, command & control [C2], payload, data-link [communications], and support equipment) to support response and recovery efforts. Option Requirements: Payload, Data Link, Cost. Phase - 3 1. Payload 3.1 [Shall be capable of color daytime video operation up to 500 feet AGL] 3.1.1 Personnel Shall place test stand 500 feet from UAS/Block Camera. 3.1.2 Test objective Shall be placed on test stand. 3.1.3 UAS/Block Camera shall...

The particular UAS mission use I am highlighting is that of medical delivery in a foreign country. I was made aware of this usage via a Ted Talk video forum given by Andreas Raptopoulos, which was assigned media viewing footage in a previous class. I was particularly impressed with UAV's being used to perform humanitarian aid to sick and ailing people. I was impressed because UAV's are given so much media coverage highlighting ISR, military, emergency, and commercial usage, but not much exposure is given to UAV's performing humanitarian missions. The mission focuses particularly on delivering much needed medicine to doctor’s thru-out the rural segment in the country of Africa. The terrain or landscape between the pharmaceutical storage facility and doctors treating patients is varied in its composition. Some areas of route are mountainous, some are filled with sand dunes with desert like conditions, some areas are populated with dense forest vegetation, some roads may be...

Some Questions to consider when integrating UAV's into the NAS. How can the separation of unmanned aircraft be monitored and maintained (among other unmanned aircraft and manned aircraft) in the National Airspace System (NAS)? The monitoring and maintaining of UAV's in the NAS is a challenging objective. In order to operate the UAS safely and effectively the communication control and commands must work in unison to achieve the safe operation of a UAV. The tracking telemetry data which yields its position and overall functionality must be updated on an ongoing cycle in order to know the UAV's position at any given time. The separation of unmanned and manned aircraft could be achieved by frequency allocation. Separating the signal spectrum between UAV's and manned aircraft is one way to keep data communication and controls separate. Determinants such as signal choice (digital or analog) could be delegated to each platform. The use of GPS and antenna can also be ...