Flight Testing of Optimal Remotely-Piloted-Aircraft-System Scan Patterns

Abstract

One of the main advancements of remotely piloted aircraft systems is their ability to carry different sensors and to surveil areas over long periods of time. Depending on the types of sensors applied, different automated flight maneuvers need to be planned and executed to acquire imagery that is meeting the missions’ objectives. These flight maneuvers are generally based on common military scan patterns (e.g., creeping-line and expanding square), and are chosen with regard to their respective advantages based on the mission characteristics. The calculation of these scan patterns requires a high accuracy and efficiency to provide optimal results and to maintain safety. In this paper, the results of flight experiments with a remotely piloted aircraft system (i.e., research aircraft demonstrating capabilities of a remotely piloted aircraft system) in non-segregated airspace are shown. In these experiments, flight paths for different scan patterns were calculated and validated in terms of accuracy, efficiency, and safety. In addition, different strategies for dynamically adapting the calculated flight path based on results from a real-time image analysis are described and evaluated.