The Farming Express Apr4 | Page 77

15.30-16.00 Persistent Aerial Surveillance using a Small Unmanned Aircraft Dr Stephen D. Prior, Reader in Unmanned Air Vehicles, University of Southampton This session will consider the design and development of a range of UAV technology platforms. Attention will be paid to the challenges of utilizing small UAVs and how to overcome such problems, with a particular focus on alternative power sources, such as new batteries chemistries, as well as tethered applications. 16.00-16.30 Implications of Bio-inspired approaches in Autonomous Mission Management Systems Professor Samia Nefti-Meziani, Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, University of Salford tion captures some of our recent developments in the context of microscopic swarm modelling of moving agent under GAMMA Programme. Growing Autonomous Mission Management Applications (GAMMA) is a three year £9.1 million, Autonomous Systems programme aimed at driving SME engagement and developing technology within the emerging autonomous systems markets. GAMMA technology areas of interest includes data management, image processing, sensing and communication, Mission planning and mission management. University of Salford is the leading partner in Autonomous mission planning and management, task allocation, hybrid optimization techniques, and intelligent decision making. 16.30 End of Technology & Regulation Conference Exhibition open until 18.00 Mission Planning and Management systems provide tools for defining mission objectives, distributing resources to assets and allocating assets to mission objectives, laying out a plan to achieve the mission objectives using the allocated assets, overseeing operation of a mission in real-time, detect contingencies, and mechanisms to deal with them such as plan reconfiguration, re-planning, mission objective alteration and modification, and asset re-tasking. Navigation and path optimization are essential components of such systems. Bio-inspired algorithms are increasingly becoming more popular in the context of robotics due to their advance learning capabilities, their resilience to noise and their implementation simplicity. This presenta20