Multi-Vehicle Systems and Air Traffic Control Commons^™

A Bent-Pipe Microwave Wireless Power Transfer Spacecraft For Relay To Unserved Regions, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This paper seeks to begin a discussion about the efficacy of using a ‘bent pipe’ transmission concept (familiar to those in the communications satellite arena) for power transfer. It presents the ‘bent pipe’ concept and provides a brief qualitative consideration of the benefits of this approach. It also begins the process of quantitatively considering the efficacy of a ‘bent pipe’ mission by exploring the trade space related to frequency, antenna size and altitude.

Autonomous Navigation And Control Of Unmanned Aerial Systems In The National Airspace, Michael Hlas, Jeremy Straub, Eunjin Kim

Jeremy Straub

Pilotless aircraft known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been used extensively for military and intelligence purposes. This includes situations where the mission area is too dangerous for a pilot to fly, the length of the mission is longer than a pilot could stay awake or aircraft are used as cruise missiles that crash into their target. With the decreasing cost and miniaturization of computers, it has become possible to build UAVs that are small and inexpensive making them accessible to businesses, law enforcement, hobbyists and the general public.

Intelligent Water Drops Algorithm For Coordinating Between Cluster Spacecraft In A Communications-Denied Environment, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

This paper presents a modification of Shah-Hosseini’s Intelligent Water Drops (IWD) technique that can be utilized for collaborative control of multiple spacecraft in environments where communications are limited, intermittent or denied. It presents Shah- Hosseini’s base IWD algorithm as well as refinements thereof, which simplify it, making it more suitable for more computationally constrained environments (such as small spacecraft and UAVs). A framework for testing the proposed approach as well as several implementation impediments are discussed.

The Critical Role Of Cubesat Spacecraft In A Multi-Tier Mission For Mars Exploration, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A multi-tier architecture is under development (with similar craft heterogeneity to Fink's work on ‘tier scalable’ missions) which will facilitate autonomous local control of multiple heterogeneous craft. This mission architecture has been developed with a Mars mission in mind and has included CubeSats in a variety of critical mission roles.

Two concepts will be presented: the addition of CubeSats to a larger-scale multi-tier mission, where the CubeSats serve a supporting role and a mission driven by CubeSat orbital capabilities. In the first, CubeSats are utilized to augment the area of spatial coverage that can be obtained and the temporal coverage …

The Multi-Tier Mission Architecture And A Different Approach To Entry, Descent And Landing, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Planetary missions are generally very well planned out. Where the spacecraft will be deployed, what it will do there and in what order are generally determined before launch. While some allowance is made for greater depth exploration of scientifically interesting items identified during the investigation, a successful mission is (generally) one that doesn’t deviate significantly from its planning. When sending an initial mission to an unsurveyed planet or moon, however, this approach is not suitable. Current space technology provides the capability to send a combined survey and lander mission (instead of conducting an initial survey mission and following it up …

Enabling Interplanetary Small Spacecraft Science Missions With Model Based Data Analysis, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Small spacecraft operating outside of Earth orbit are significantly constrained by the communica- tions link available to them. This is particularly true for stand-alone craft that must rely on their own antenna and transmission systems (for which gain and available power generation are limited by form factor); it is also applicable to ‘hitchhiker’-style missions which may be able to utilize (quite likely very limited amounts of) time on the primary spacecraft’s communications equip- ment for long-haul transmission.

This poster presents the adaptation of the Model-Based Transmission Reduction (MBTR) frame- work’s Model-Based Data Analysis (MBDA) component for use on an interplanetary …

Desktop Warfare: Robotic Collaboration For Persistent Surveillance, Situational Awareness And Combat Operations, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

Robotic sensing and weapons platforms can be controlled from a desktop workstation on the other side of the planet from where combat is occurring. This minimizes the potential for injury to soldiers and increases operational productivity. Significant work has been undertaken and is ongoing related to the autonomous control of battlefield sensing and warfighting systems. While many aspects of these operations can be performed autonomously, in some cases it is necessary (due to technical limitations) or desirable (due to legal or political implications) to involve humans in the low-level decision making. This paper reviews a number of specific applications where …

A Human Proximity Operations System Test Case Validation Approach, Justin Huber, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A Human Proximity Operations System (HPOS) poses numerous risks in a real world environment. These risks range from mundane tasks such as avoiding walls and fixed obstacles to the critical need to keep people and processes safe in the context of the HPOS’s situation-specific decision making. Validating the performance of an HPOS, which must operate in a real-world environment, is an ill posed problem due to the complexity that is introduced by erratic (non-computer) actors. In order to prove the HPOS’s usefulness, test cases must be generated to simulate possible actions of these actors, so the HPOS can be shown …

Multi-Tier Exploration Concept Demonstration Mission, Jeremy Straub

Jeremy Straub

A multi-tier, multi-craft mission architecture has been proposed but, despite its apparent promise, limited use and testing of the architecture has been conducted. This paper proposes and details a mission concept and its implementation for testing this architecture in the terrestrial environment. It is expected that this testing will allow significant refinement of the proposed architecture as well as providing data on its suitability for use in both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial applications. Logistical and technical challenges with this testing are discussed.