Application of a visualization environment for the mission performance evaluation of civilian UAS

Future unmanned aerial vehicle applications require the development of new advanced design environments. To get an effective unmanned aerial system, UAS, solution, it is necessary to take into account all elements of the system, e.g., to bring together aircraft design, payload, communication and other elements into one multidisciplinary design process. Compared to manned aircraft, an unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, interacts with the environment through the onboard sensors. Therefore, the sensor and communication performances as well as their implementation in the whole system play an important role in mission fulfillment. To take the interaction with the operational environment into account, this operational environment is simulated during the design and assessment process. Owing to the high resolution and elevation-based terrain data, geometry representation of the UAS elements and its interaction with the environment, the sensor and communication performance is simulated, evaluated and fed back into the aircraft design process. For this, the following data are obtained during the mission simulation for the evaluation: height of the terrain, sensor coverage area, presence of uncovered areas, slant range to the ground or objects of interest, obstacles in line of sight, probability of an object detection and detection of the camera field of view limitations.     «

Future unmanned aerial vehicle applications require the development of new advanced design environments. To get an effective unmanned aerial system, UAS, solution, it is necessary to take into account all elements of the system, e.g., to bring together aircraft design, payload, communication and other elements into one multidisciplinary design process. Compared to manned aircraft, an unmanned aerial vehicle, UAV, interacts with the environment through the onboard sensors. Therefore, the sensor a...     »