World ATM Congress 2016

Workshop GINA-UPM Research Group“Ongoing postgraduate and PhD research in RPAS domain”

Madrid, 10th March 2016

Research activities in the rpas-lab

Prof. Cristina Cuerno RejadoFull Professor of Aircraft Design

Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (ETSIAE-UPM)

Member of the Board of the Spanish Air Accidents Investigation Commission

(CIAIAC)

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The aim of the presentation is to provide an overview of the activities in the field

of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) developed in the RPASLab of the

Faculty of Aerospace Engineering (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid-

Technical University of Madrid) under my coordination. Although the emphasis

will be on the R&D activities, not only these will be considered but also some

educational activities, which will serve as a starting point for new research and

development projects:

Lecturing activities.

Final Thesis.

Doctoral Thesis.

R&D Projects.

As it will be seen, almost the majority activities are developed irrespectively of

their civil or military use, or even taking into account a future dual application

(for instance, SAVIER Project).

Scheme of the presentation

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Collaboration with GMV (by means of CATEDRA GMV) for the creation and

implementation of rpaslab, depending on professors and lecturers from Flight

Mechanics and Aircraft Design units, in order to become a center of activity

around unmanned systems at ETSIAE.

rpaslab

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Equipment:

• 10 RC airplanes.

• 3 RC multirotors.

• RC equipment.

• Engines, servos, batteries, etc.

• Electronics (Arduino, Raspberry, etc).

• Sensors (IMUs, GPS, etc).

• Payloads (cameras).

• 3D Printer.

• PCs and Laptops.

• Tools.

• Testing setups.

rpaslab

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Formal lectures in the Bachelor in Aerospace Engineering and

Master in Aeronautical Engineering :

• Final Thesis in various formats (ruled, department,

company) for Bachelor and Master level.

• Subject "Unmanned Aircraft Systems" in the 2nd year of

Master's Degree in Aeronautical Engineering.

Lecturing activities

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Actividades de carácter docente

Final Thesis on Fixed Wing UAS :UCAV Victory.

Final Thesis on Fixed Wing UAS:Design of a long range, highendurance UAS for intelligence,surveillance and reconnaissanceapplications.

Final Thesis

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Actividades de carácter docenteFinal Thesis in AERNNOVAENGINEERING: Testing Platform(right); Testing and Control SystemsDesign Articulated by Morphing (left).

Erasmus Final Thesis (T.U.Münich): Preliminary studies in theNITROFIREX Project.

Final Thesis in the AerospaceVehicles Dept.: Design of a miniRPAS in box-wing configuration.

Final Thesis

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Actividades de carácter docenteFinal Thesis on Regulations:Comparative study of EuropeanNational Regulations for lightremotely piloted systems.

Final Thesis on Design Tools:Conceptual design of RPAS.

Final Thesis on Fixed Wing UAS:ONIX. Tandem wing VTOL aircraft.

Final Thesis

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Direction of PhD Thesis (some examples):

• “Unconventional aircraft optimization: Joined-wing”.

• “Study of unconventional box-wing configurations for

unmanned aircraft (UAS)”.

• “Future intensive use of UASs for civil and military

applications in non-segregated airspace – GCS”, funded

by Airbus Defense.

• “Study of robust fault-tolerant autopilot for RPAS”

• “RPAS design: an MDO approach”.

• “RPAS safety assessment and management process”.

PhD Thesis

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Actividades de carácter docente

PhD Thesis on: Unconventionalaircraft optimization: Joined-wing

PhD Thesis on: Study of

unconventional box-wing

configurations for unmanned aircraft

(UAS)

PhD Thesis

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SAVIER PROJECT – CASSIDIAN/UPMTD12 - Future intensive use of UASs for civil and military

applications in non-segregated airspace – GCS

PhD Thesis

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Actividades de carácter docente

PhD Thesis on: Study of RobustFault-Tolerant Autopilot for RPAS

PhD Thesis on: RPAS design: an MDOapproach

PhD Thesis

Flux of information

Control chain

Physical reference

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Actividades de carácter docente

PhD Thesis on: RPAS safetyassessment and management process.

PhD Thesis

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R+D national competitive projects:

• Collaboration in the CDTI’s Project CENIT SINTONIA

(Sistemas No Tripulados Orientados al Nulo Impacto

Ambiental) with INDRA and Boeing R&TE.

• Collaboration in the CDTI’s Project INNPRONTA ADAM

(Automation Development for Autonomous Mobility) with

Boeing R&TE:

Prof. Cuerno is the Team Leader of the subproject “Guided

development and operation algorithms, and simulation tools and

analysis for autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles - simultaneous

operation of vehicle fleets“.

Research activities

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Project: INNPRONTA ADAM - Automation Development for Autonomous

Mobility

Leader company Boeing Research & Technology Europe S.L.

• Dimensional analysis of the problem of guidance during descent.

• Development of advanced guidance arrival 4D algorithms for autonomous

aerial vehicles.

• Review of state of the art and/or the original development of metrics to

determine the quality of service systems, fleet management, focused on

the problem of descent in competition for reaching a shared resource.

• Conflict resolution strategies for autonomous vehicle trajectories

competing for reaching a shared resource while descending

(development and programming algorithms).

Research activities

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R+D European competitive projects :

• Prof. Cuerno has been the Team Leader of ISDEFE team,

winner of the Tender FRONTEX/OP/26/2011– Remotely

Piloted Aircraft Systems Study 2012.

Research activities

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R+D European competitive projects :

• Prof. Cuerno is the Team Leader of UPM team, involved into

the ALTER TECHNOLOGY’ proposal for Tender

GSA/EEX.0030/2015 EGNOS ADOPTION IN AVIATION,

entitled “EGNOS For FutuRe RPAS in Europe & NeTworking;

EFFERENT” (in evaluation).

Research activities

Components manufacturers

Equipment manufacturers

RPAS manufacturers

Service providers

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Dissemination of research: congress contributions, papers and

conferences specially. Several examples are the following:

• “Aplicabilidad de la normativa vigente para RPAS ligeros. Un caso de estudio”.

CivilDron’16 Congress; 2016.

• “Diseño y fabricación de un dron de geometría no convencional con sistema de

recarga en vuelo por inducción magnética”. CivilDron’16 Congress; 2016.

• “Aplicación del control de RPAS de ala rotatoria al tratamiento del trastorno por

déficit de atención-hiperactividad”. CivilDron’16 Congress; 2016.

• “Evolution of the unmanned aerial vehicles until present”. DYNA, 2015.

• “Aerodynamic parametric optimization of a non-conventional joined-wing aircraft

configuration”. Proc. IMechE Part G, Journal of Aerospace Engineering, 2015.

• “Comparative study of european RPAS regulations”. 5th CEAS International

Congress; Delft, Netherlands; 2015.

Research activities

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• “Developing models for future Real-Time platforms. Virtual simulation and

design of new components and systems for aircraft and remotely piloted aircraft

systems”. 2015 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Technology.

• “Aeronaves no tripuladas: estado de la legislación para realizar su integración

en el espacio aéreo no segregado”. Revista de Derecho del Transporte; 2014.

• “Situación actual de la certificación e integración de las aeronaves no tripuladas

en el espacio aéreo no segregado”, en el libro “Actividad aeronáutica: nuevos

retos y reflexiones desde un punto de vista multidisciplinar”, 2013 (Serv. Publ.

Gobierno Vasco).

• “Present perspective of the airworthiness regulatory initiatives for unmanned

aerial systems”. First Workshop on Research, Development and Education on

Unmanned Aerial Systems (RED-UAS 2011).

• “Preliminary aerodynamic investigation of an unmanned box-wing aircraft”, 28th

Congress of the ICAS; Brisbane, Australia, 2012.

• “Integration of UAS in the civil airworthiness regulatory system: a case study”.

Journal of Aircraft 2011.

Research activities

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Other R+D+i Projects:

• Project P130135160 “Development of models for real-time

platforms” funded by FUNDACIÓN TECNALIA: based on the

Tecnalia’s proprietary DYNACAR, for developing the

DYNAPLANE tool. For this, as a complementary activity, the Final

Thesis entitled "Conceptual design of an electric powered UAV

for future tuning simulation tools" was finalized, and a paper was

presented in the IEEE ICIT2015.

Research activities

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Other R+D+i Projects :

• An improved re-design of ONIX RPAS is being conducted. The

main changes are:

– Increasing of MTOW due to new equipment on board.

– New wings and vertical surfaces geometry.

– New power plant, with more detailed studies on performances.

– Preliminary load estimations according to the flight envelope in order to

design the structure in composite materials.

• The manufacturing of the wing, the first element of this prototype,

is going to start this month at the Faculty of Aerospace

Engineering (ETSIAE-UPM). This is going to be based on Final

Thesis and Master Thesis.

• The new aircraft is renamed to RL-X1.

Research activities

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Other R+D+i Activities:

• Studies on data link and communications between different

systems.

• Studies related to onboard equipment and payloads (cameras,

electronics, avionics, sensors, etc).

• Studies and new designs to achieve the operational and

manufacturing requirements based on 3D printer.

• Studies on image recognition algorithms and image processing.

• Studies on performances of electric power plants which are

composed of propellers, brushless motors, controllers, and

batteries.

Research activities

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Summary

Initial

specs.Conceptual

designPerformances Manufacturing

Regulations

Certification

Design

• Onix & RL-X1;

• Final thesis on

fixed wing

RPAS;

• PhD Thesis on

design MDO;

• PhD Thesis on

joined wing;

• PhD Thesis on

box-wing

Comparative Study on Regulations (Final Thesis)

• RL-X1;

• 3D printer (Study)

Conceptual design of RPAS (Final Thesis)

Data link & Communications (Study)

• PhD Thesis on

Autopilots;

• Aboard equipment

Image processing

(Study)

Mission

Powerplant

performances

(Study)

PhD Thesis on Certification

PhD Thesis

on GCS

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Questions???