Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been drawing a great deal of attention within both the public and private sectors as an effective tool for mitigation, prevention, and timely response to emergency situations. However, for non-military applications, UAVs have not been as easily adopted as the potential of these systems suggests. This is in part due to issues of regulation and licensing but it is also due in significant part to the difficulties in actually operating UAVs in a safe and effective manner without significant investment in human resources in terms of training and especially for the actual flying. In order for UAVs to become part of the mainstream set of tools used to improve Canadian safety and security; advances are necessary in the control and automatic operation of these systems. In existing UAV systems, a human operator intervenes in the UAV's operation or maneuvers in a somewhat disjointed manner. The human operator normally assists in the UAV in take-off, landing and in some cases to fly the UAV to established or dynamically selected waypoints. Although this type of human-computer integrated control has proven to be an effective way to operate long-range and medium/high-altitude UAVs, a greater level of flexibility in the human-computer interaction is required for operation of low-altitude UAVs. The environment in which low-altitude UAVs' function is much more dynamic requiring a more flexible autonomy with seamless transfer of control in the presence of static/dynamic clutter and variable obstacles in which the UAV is being positioned. The need for rapid, timely and accurate response by the UAV is more critical. Funding is therefore sought to support a UAV research program for urban policing, law enforcement and effective monitoring for deliberate criminal/terrorist acts with a focus on low-altitude UAV in order to develop a flexible human-computer control mechanism to make these UAVs a viable surveillance and monitoring alternative