CBL - Campus del Baix Llobregat

Projecte llegit

Títol: EGNOS for UAVs

Director/a: GARCÍA LOZANO, MARIO

Departament: TSC

Títol: EGNOS for UAVs

Data inici oferta: 30-01-2019 Data finalització oferta: 30-09-2019

Estudis d'assignació del projecte:

MU DRONS

Tipus: Individual

Lloc de realització: Fora UPC

Supervisor/a extern: Pere Molina Mazón
Institució/Empresa: Geonumerics
Titulació del Director/a: Master in Advanced Mathematics (UB)

Paraules clau:
Drone, UAV, RPAS, UAS, GNSS, SBAS, EGNOS, PLs, ALs…

Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats:
Safety is key in the adoption of drones for all professional applications, and one major aspect of drone safety is assuring that, when a drone is flying within a given airspace, the navigation parameters of the drone -that is, time and position, mainly- computed by its on-board instruments are reliable to a high extent. This is of the utmost importance in autonomous missions (non-remotely pilot) in which waypoints will be followed using solely on-board navigation systems. Global Position System (GPS) has become the main means of outdoor navigation for drones, and this is due to its license-free global access and low cost of technology. However, GPS is far from being reliable always, at any place. Excluding signal jamming, hacking and spoofing (intentional or not), there are sources of error that affect GPS due to its architecture (satellite clocks, atmospheric impact on signals, etc.) which are non-negligible and even worse, these errors can be sometimes undetected. Clearly, one cannot put safety of a flying platform only in the hands of GPS. This is where GPS augmentation systems come to play. One possible way of augmenting GPS is to use the satellite-based augmentation systems (SBAS), such as the European GNSS Navigation Overlay System (EGNOS). When using the correction of EGNOS, the accuracy of GPS positions drops to 3m / 4m and the confidence of position calculation is highly increased (to the point that EGNOS is certified for commercial aviation procedures type APV-I, or even to 200ft depending on the location). This EGNOS added value is called navigation integrity, and GeoNumerics aims at bringing this potential to drone navigation. This master project will be framed in EGNOS and, more specifically, will implement software tools to read and decode EGNOS messages such that GPS navigation can be improved. The student will have to deal with real data from GPS/EGNOS receivers, implement readers and decoders of EGNOS messages and forward the adequate information to GeoNumerics’ computation engines for trajectory determination in drone applications. The student will be working full time (9 AM to 5:00 PM) mostly dedicated at developing the project and writing the master thesis.

Overview (resum en anglès):
The Unmanned Aircraft Vehicles (UAV) industry has grown at such an amazing rate, that it is almost impossible to count or describe all the applications that have become normal practice, not to mention the number of companies involved in either making drone platforms or supplying drone integrators with sensors: GNSS receivers, inertial sensors, LiDAR, photographic, thermal and infrared cameras, video and more. In particular, positioning systems have become crucial for almost all industrial drone’s applications, such as photogrammetry, 3D mapping, search and rescue operations, surveillance… Beyond the use of computed positions of the drone for professional matters, the need to “getting the right position to fly safely” is of the utmost importance. Yet, most of the GNSS receivers on-board of drones provide low-quality data, with no expected changes in the long-term, principally because of their cost and weight. Then, new questions are arising: Is the low-quality position data good enough for current or new applications? Are there other technologies, systems or methods able to improve performance without changing the drone’s GNSS receivers? The answer is positive: SBAS augmentation system is a complement to GPS built initially for civil aviation, but available to GNSS receivers, even those from drones. It is a method reduce more than a half the position error (accuracy) and also gives additional information in order to quantify how bad the measurements are (integrity). This document will explain how a software able to calculate GPS-based positioning augmented with SBAS has been developed and then, the results of it are assessed in order to analyse if the system would be useful in drone applications or operations.