In the last decade, signi?cant changes have occurred in the ?eld of vehicle motion planning, and for UAVs in particular. UAV motion planning is especially dif?cult due to several complexities not considered by earlier planning strategies: the - creased importance of differential constraints, atmospheric turbulence which makes it impossible to follow a pre-computed plan precisely, uncertainty in the vehicle state, and limited knowledge about the environment due to limited sensor capabilities. These differences have motivated the increased use of feedback and other control engineering techniques for motion planning. The lack of exact algorithms for these problems and dif?culty inherent in characterizing approximation algorithms makes it impractical to determine algorithm time complexity, completeness, and even soundness. This gap has not yet been addressed by statistical characterization of experimental performance of algorithms and benchmarking. Because of this overall lack of knowledge, it is dif?cult to design a guidance system, let alone choose the algorithm. Throughout this paper we keep in mind some of the general characteristics and requirements pertaining to UAVs. A UAV is typically modeled as having velocity and acceleration constraints (and potentially the higher-order differential constraints associated with the equations of motion), and the objective is to guide the vehicle towards a goal through an obstacle ?eld. A UAV guidance problem is typically characterized by a three-dimensional problem space, limited information about the environment, on-board sensors with limited range, speed and acceleration constraints, and uncertainty in vehicle state and sensor data.

This book features the latest theoretical results and techniques in the field of guidance, navigation, and control (GNC) of vehicles and aircraft. It covers a range of topics, including, but not limited to, intelligent computing communication and control; new methods of navigation, estimation, and tracking; control of multiple moving objects; manned and autonomous unmanned systems; guidance, navigation, and control of miniature aircraft; and sensor systems for guidance, navigation, and control. Presenting recent advances in the form of illustrations, tables, and text, it also provides detailed information of a number of the studies, to offer readers insights for their own research. In addition, the book addresses fundamental concepts and studies in the development of GNC, making it a valuable resource for both beginners and researchers wanting to further their understanding of guidance, navigation, and control.

This book provides an introduction to the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for the geographic observation and spatial analysis of urban areas. The velocity of urban change necessitates observation platforms that not only enhance situational awareness for planning and allied analytical efforts, but also provide the ability to rapidly and inexpensively collect data and monitor change. UAVs can accomplish both of these tasks, but their use in urban environments is loaded with social, operational, regulatory and technical challenges that must be addressed for successful deployments. The book provides a resource for educators and students who work with geographic information and are seeking to enhance these data with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles. Topics covered include, 1) a primer on UAVs and the many different ways they can be used for geographic observation, 2) a detailed overview on the use of aviation maps and charts for operating UAVs in complex urban airspace, 3) techniques for integrating UAV-derived data with more traditional geographic information, 4) application of spatial analytical tools for urban and environmental planning, and 5) an exploration of privacy and public safety issues associated with UAV operation.

Advances in artificial intelligence, sensor computing, robotics, and mobile systems are making autonomous systems a reality. At the same time, the influence of edge computing is leading to more distributed architectures incorporating more autonomous elements. The flow of information is critical in such environments, but the real time, distributed nature of the system components complicates the data protection mechanisms. Policy-based management has proven useful in simplifying the complexity of management in domains like networking, security, and storage; it is expected that many of those benefits would carry over to the task of managing big data and autonomous systems. This book aims at providing an overview of recent work and identifying challenges related to the design of policy-based approaches for managing big data and autonomous systems. An important new direction explored in the book is to make the major elements of the system self-describing and self-managing. This would lead to architectures where policy mechanisms are tightly coupled with the system elements. In such integrated architectures, we need new models for information assurance, traceability of information, and better provenance on information flows. In addition when dealing with devices with actuation capabilities and, thus, being able to make changes to physical spaces, safety is critical. With an emphasis on policy-based mechanisms for governance of data security and privacy, and for safety assurance, the papers in this volume follow three broad themes: foundational principles and use-cases for the autonomous generation of policies; safe autonomy; policies and autonomy in federated environments.

The Future of Intelligent Transport Systems considers ITS from three perspectives: users, business models and regulation/policy. Topics cover in-vehicle applications, such as autonomous driving, vehicle-to-vehicle/vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, and related applications, such as personalized mobility. The book also examines ITS technology enablers, such as sensing technologies, wireless communication, computational technology, user behavior as part of the transportation chain, financial models that influence ITS, regulations, policies and standards affecting ITS, and the future of ITS applications. Users will find a holistic approach to the most recent technological advances and the future spectrum of mobility. - Systematically presents the whole spectrum of next generation Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) technologies - Integrates coverage of personalized mobility and digital assistants, big data analytics and autonomous driving - Includes end-of-chapter, open-ended questions that trigger thinking on the technological, managerial and regulatory aspects of ITS

In the last decade, signi?cant changes have occurred in the ?eld of vehicle motion planning, and for UAVs in particular. UAV motion planning is especially dif?cult due to several complexities not considered by earlier planning strategies: the - creased importance of differential constraints, atmospheric turbulence which makes it impossible to follow a pre-computed plan precisely, uncertainty in the vehicle state, and limited knowledge about the environment due to limited sensor capabilities. These differences have motivated the increased use of feedback and other control engineering techniques for motion planning. The lack of exact algorithms for these problems and dif?culty inherent in characterizing approximation algorithms makes it impractical to determine algorithm time complexity, completeness, and even soundness. This gap has not yet been addressed by statistical characterization of experimental performance of algorithms and benchmarking. Because of this overall lack of knowledge, it is dif?cult to design a guidance system, let alone choose the algorithm. Throughout this paper we keep in mind some of the general characteristics and requirements pertaining to UAVs. A UAV is typically modeled as having velocity and acceleration constraints (and potentially the higher-order differential constraints associated with the equations of motion), and the objective is to guide the vehicle towards a goal through an obstacle ?eld. A UAV guidance problem is typically characterized by a three-dimensional problem space, limited information about the environment, on-board sensors with limited range, speed and acceleration constraints, and uncertainty in vehicle state and sensor data.

This book contains the proceedings of the ROBOT 2013: FIRST IBERIAN ROBOTICS CONFERENCE and it can be said that included both state of the art and more practical presentations dealing with implementation problems, support technologies and future applications. A growing interest in Assistive Robotics, Agricultural Robotics, Field Robotics, Grasping and Dexterous Manipulation, Humanoid Robots, Intelligent Systems and Robotics, Marine Robotics, has been demonstrated by the very relevant number of contributions. Moreover, ROBOT2013 incorporates a special session on Legal and Ethical Aspects in Robotics that is becoming a topic of key relevance. This Conference was held in Madrid (28-29 November 2013), organized by the Sociedad Española para la Investigación y Desarrollo en Robótica (SEIDROB) and by the Centre for Automation and Robotics - CAR (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) and Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)), along with the co-operation of Grupo Temático de Robótica CEA-GTRob, "Sociedade Portuguesa de Robotica" (SPR), "Asociación Española de Promoción de la Investigación en Agentes Físicos" (RedAF), and partially supported by "Comunidad de Madrid under RoboCity2030 Programme".

Downscaled physical models, also referred to as subscale models, have played an essential role in the investigation of the complex physics of flight until the recent disruption of numerical simulation. Despite the fact that improvements in computational methods are slowly pushing experimental techniques towards a secondary role as verification or calibration tools, real-world testing of physical prototypes still provides an unmatched confidence. Physical models are very effective at revealing issues that are sometimes not correctly identified in the virtual domain, and hence can be a valuable complement to other design tools. But traditional wind-tunnel testing cannot always meet all of the requirements of modern aeronautical research and development. It is nowadays too expensive to use these scarce facilities to explore different design iterations during the initial stages of aircraft development, or to experiment with new and immature technologies. Testing of free-flight subscale models, referred to as Subscale Flight Testing (SFT), could offer an affordable and low-risk alternative for complementing conventional techniques with both qualitative and quantitative information. The miniaturisation of mechatronic systems, the advances in rapid-prototyping techniques and power storage, as well as new manufacturing methods, currently enable the development of sophisticated test objects at scales that were impractical some decades ago. Moreover, the recent boom in the commercial drone industry has driven a quick development of specialised electronics and sensors, which offer nowadays surprising capabilities at competitive prices. These recent technological disruptions have significantly altered the cost-benefit function of SFT and it is necessary to re-evaluate its potential in the contemporary aircraft development context. This thesis aims to increase the comprehension and knowledge of the SFT method in order to define a practical framework for its use in aircraft design; focusing on low-cost, short-time solutions that don’t require more than a small organization and few resources. This objective is approached from a theoretical point of view by means of an analysis of the physical and practical limitations of the scaling laws; and from an empirical point of view by means of field experiments aimed at identifying practical needs for equipment, methods, and tools. A low-cost data acquisition system is developed and tested; a novel method for semi-automated flight testing in small airspaces is proposed; a set of tools for analysis and visualisation of flight data is presented; and it is also demonstrated that it is possible to explore and demonstrate new technology using SFT with a very limited amount of economic and human resources. All these, together with a theoretical review and contextualisation, contribute to increasing the comprehension and knowledge of the SFT method in general, and its potential applications in aircraft conceptual design in particular.

A comprehensive survey of artificial intelligence algorithms and programming organization for robot systems, combining theoretical rigor and practical applications. This textbook offers a comprehensive survey of artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and programming organization for robot systems. Readers who master the topics covered will be able to design and evaluate an artificially intelligent robot for applications involving sensing, acting, planning, and learning. A background in AI is not required; the book introduces key AI topics from all AI subdisciplines throughout the book and explains how they contribute to autonomous capabilities. This second edition is a major expansion and reorganization of the first edition, reflecting the dramatic advances made in AI over the past fifteen years. An introductory overview provides a framework for thinking about AI for robotics, distinguishing between the fundamentally different design paradigms of automation and autonomy. The book then discusses the reactive functionality of sensing and acting in AI robotics; introduces the deliberative functions most often associated with intelligence and the capability of autonomous initiative; surveys multi-robot systems and (in a new chapter) human-robot interaction; and offers a “metaview” of how to design and evaluate autonomous systems and the ethical considerations in doing so. New material covers locomotion, simultaneous localization and mapping, human-robot interaction, machine learning, and ethics. Each chapter includes exercises, and many chapters provide case studies. Endnotes point to additional reading, highlight advanced topics, and offer robot trivia.

Comprehensively covers emerging aerospace technologies Advanced UAV aerodynamics, flight stability and control: Novel concepts, theory and applications presents emerging aerospace technologies in the rapidly growing field of unmanned aircraft engineering. Leading scientists, researchers and inventors describe the findings and innovations accomplished in current research programs and industry applications throughout the world. Topics included cover a wide range of new aerodynamics concepts and their applications for real world fixed-wing (airplanes), rotary wing (helicopter) and quad-rotor aircraft. The book begins with two introductory chapters that address fundamental principles of aerodynamics and flight stability and form a knowledge base for the student of Aerospace Engineering. The book then covers aerodynamics of fixed wing, rotary wing and hybrid unmanned aircraft, before introducing aspects of aircraft flight stability and control. Key features: Sound technical level and inclusion of high-quality experimental and numerical data. Direct application of the aerodynamic technologies and flight stability and control principles described in the book in the development of real-world novel unmanned aircraft concepts. Written by world-class academics, engineers, researchers and inventors from prestigious institutions and industry. The book provides up-to-date information in the field of Aerospace Engineering for university students and lecturers, aerodynamics researchers, aerospace engineers, aircraft designers and manufacturers.