AST Digital Magazine July 2017 Digital-July | Page 34

Volume 14
“The goal of FLA is to develop advanced algo-
rithms to allow unmanned air or ground vehicles
to operate without the guidance of a human tele-
operator, GPS, or any datalinks going to or com-
ing from the vehicle,” said JC Ledé, the DARPA
FLA program manager.
“Most people don’t realize how dependent cur-
rent UAVs are on either a remote pilot, GPS, or
both.”
July 2017 Edition
required is the target or objective for the UAV to
search for—which could be in the form of a digital
photograph uploaded to the onboard computer
before flight—as well as the estimated direction
and distance to the target.
A basic map or satellite picture of the area, if
available, could also be uploaded.
Courtesy of DARPA
JC Ledé, the DARPA FLA program manager (Courtesy of
DARPA)
“Small, low-cost unmanned aircraft rely heavily
on tele-operators and GPS not only for knowing
the vehicle’s position precisely, but also for cor-
recting errors in the estimated altitude and veloc-
ity of the air vehicle, without which the vehicle
wouldn’t know for very long if it’s flying straight
and level or in a steep turn.”
“In FLA, the aircraft has to figure all of that out
on its own with sufficient accuracy to avoid ob-
stacles and complete its mission.”
The FLA program is focused on developing a
new class of algorithms that enables UAVs to
operate in GPS-denied or GPS-unavailable en-
vironments—like indoors, underground, or inten-
tionally jammed—without a human tele-operator.
Under the FLA program, the only human input
After the operator gives the launch command,
the vehicle must navigate its way to the objec-
tive with no other knowledge of the terrain or en-
vironment, autonomously maneuvering around
uncharted obstacles in its way and finding alter-
native pathways as needed.
The recent four days of testing combined ele-
ments from three previous flight experiments
that together tested the teams’ algorithms’ abili-
ties and robustness to real-world conditions.
Some of those conditions include:
• Quickly adjusting from bright sunshine to the
dark building interiors
• Sensing and avoiding trees with dangling
masses of Spanish moss
• Navigating a simple maze, or
• Traversing long distances over feature-de-
prived areas
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