High-Bandwidth Control and Advanced Dynamic Modelling for Unmanned Helicopters. Advanced control theory will be applied to enable precise control of unmanned helicopters in the presence of disturbances. This is critical for: operating unmanned helicopters among the buildings of urban environments, reconnaissance, investigating dangerous areas, pursuit of targets, and many other desirable capabilities for law enforcement and military purposes. The ability of a small RUAV to launch and recover to ....High-Bandwidth Control and Advanced Dynamic Modelling for Unmanned Helicopters. Advanced control theory will be applied to enable precise control of unmanned helicopters in the presence of disturbances. This is critical for: operating unmanned helicopters among the buildings of urban environments, reconnaissance, investigating dangerous areas, pursuit of targets, and many other desirable capabilities for law enforcement and military purposes. The ability of a small RUAV to launch and recover to a moving vessel would significantly enhance operational possibilities for border protection tasks and the Australian Defence Force. The research has direct application to other mechanical systems such as underwater vehicles, mobile robots, and precision control of agricultural vehicles, overhead cranes, and mining equipment.Read moreRead less
Remote Delivery and Capture of Payloads using Aerial Deployed Tethers. The capability to rapidly transport payloads to and from remote locations is critical for search and rescue, disaster relief, remote communities, and military operations. Conventional technology is not well suited to this role, hence we propose to develop an intelligent system to manoeuvre a tether, towed from an aircraft, to pick-up or set-down a payload, with zero surface velocity. Because of the complex, nonlinear dynamics ....Remote Delivery and Capture of Payloads using Aerial Deployed Tethers. The capability to rapidly transport payloads to and from remote locations is critical for search and rescue, disaster relief, remote communities, and military operations. Conventional technology is not well suited to this role, hence we propose to develop an intelligent system to manoeuvre a tether, towed from an aircraft, to pick-up or set-down a payload, with zero surface velocity. Because of the complex, nonlinear dynamics of a cable-body system, advanced modelling and nonlinear optimal control will be applied in this task. The resulting world-first system will provide important economic opportunities and demonstrate Australian scientific capacity for novel developing intelligent systems.Read moreRead less
Automated helicopter hover and recovery system for operations at sea. The small size and simplicity of the integrated system outlined in this project will significantly improve the effectiveness of maritime surveillance for homeland security whilst enabling substantially lower operational costs. The proposal aims to develop control and sensing techniques, enabling small rotary wing unmanned air-vehicles (UAVs) weighing less than 100 kgs to operate from small-size vessels. This will be achieved ....Automated helicopter hover and recovery system for operations at sea. The small size and simplicity of the integrated system outlined in this project will significantly improve the effectiveness of maritime surveillance for homeland security whilst enabling substantially lower operational costs. The proposal aims to develop control and sensing techniques, enabling small rotary wing unmanned air-vehicles (UAVs) weighing less than 100 kgs to operate from small-size vessels. This will be achieved by resolving the current lack of integration between ship motion and the unmanned vehicle guidance systems. The proposed research will make substantial contributions in areas of ship motion prediction and sensing and hover control of tethered and non-tethered small helicopters.
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Image Based Visual Servo Control of Dynamic Under-Actuated Systems. The project builds on earlier work on visual servo control of under-actuated rigid body dynamics to develop and implement sophisticated and robust image based visual servo control for a wide class of under-actuated and fully actuated dynamic systems. The scope of the project extends far beyond basic testing of preliminary results to address key technical issues facing visual servo control algorithms at this time. The project i ....Image Based Visual Servo Control of Dynamic Under-Actuated Systems. The project builds on earlier work on visual servo control of under-actuated rigid body dynamics to develop and implement sophisticated and robust image based visual servo control for a wide class of under-actuated and fully actuated dynamic systems. The scope of the project extends far beyond basic testing of preliminary results to address key technical issues facing visual servo control algorithms at this time. The project is strongly motivated by the host of emerging applications for visual servo control of unmanned aerial vehicles. The experimental program within the project is based on control of a four rotor VTOL `hoverbot'.Read moreRead less
Image-based teleoperation of semi-autonomous robotic vehicles. This project will contribute strongly to Australia's robotic service industry in the development of semi-autonomous robotic inspection vehicles by; developing core technology in image-based teleoperation, training experts in the area, promoting the study of this topic within the Australian academia, and developing test facilities and prototype vehicles. Robotic inspection vehicles have the potential to replace direct human presence i ....Image-based teleoperation of semi-autonomous robotic vehicles. This project will contribute strongly to Australia's robotic service industry in the development of semi-autonomous robotic inspection vehicles by; developing core technology in image-based teleoperation, training experts in the area, promoting the study of this topic within the Australian academia, and developing test facilities and prototype vehicles. Robotic inspection vehicles have the potential to replace direct human presence in difficult, dangerous or simply uncomfortable inspection tasks such as; inspection of industrial pressure vessels, piping and conduits in factories or mines, undersea cabling, inspection of bridges, dams and other large scale civil buildings, amongst many other possibilities.Read moreRead less