Autonomous Unmanned Aerial System as a Mobile Wireless Sensor Network for Environmental and Ice Monitoring in Arctic Marine Operations

For future oil exploration in the Arctic, monitoring of environmental and ice conditions will be critical for safety. Large manned aircraft and ships, satellites, weather buoys and some stationary oil installations today operate remote sensing of ocean performed today with sensors / sampling methods. Of these, only satellite-based system and military aircraft that can do effective monitoring of remote marine areas in the Norwegian economic zone. For commercial operations in areas of long distance from infrastructure in Arctic, transport of airplanes and crews to and from the operational area dominates cost. In these areas, the Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) have the potential for significant cost savings and increased availability. This project focuses on what happens in front of an operation with unmanned craft by doing research on aeronautical improvements, improved navigation and enhanced, redundant data links to aircraft. A new data link module for use on smaller UAVs have been developed and manufactured prototypes thereof. Unlike previous radio modules for UAV, this may be used in substantially smaller UAVs. The weight is reduced from 2700g to 190g. The new module will also get significantly shorter range, but will be sufficient for many purposes. In addition, research is on systems in the back of the operations to present and communicate sensor data from the unmanned craft in the best possible way between all the vessels that take advantage of the information. The first part of the project has tested new concept for takeoff and landing of unmanned vehicles from ships. Tests with electrically conductive surfaces based on carbon nanotubes (CNT) shows promising results as measures against icing during flight, and it is applied for patent. Several UAV platforms have qualified and tested the method. New methods developed for automatic detection of icing based on UAV autopilot standard sensors. Further research is integration of optical navigation aids combined with inertial navigation as alternative navigation aids if the magnetic compass or GPS fails during flight. Preparation of tests with drop of trackers on ice floes and icebergs with X8 UAV. Developed an own payload for Penguin B UAV to support research into robust navigation. It has IMUs (Inertial Measurement Unit) from SensoNor and Analog Devices, magnetometer, laser altimeter, carrier-phase GPS, high-resolution camera in addition to the autopilot's navigation system. Carried out preliminary tests and planned use of phased array antenna for navigation in situations where GPS is not reliable. Carried out tests with newly developed algorithms for detection and tracking of objects using thermal (infrared) sensors through the winter 2015. Improvement in avionic-platform of Penguin MR UAV. A substantially more robust and more space efficient installation are the result. The new COM solution will contain redundancy with a combination of several different COM systems. There have also been several fields and flight testing of this solution. Tests and data collection with X8 UAV is carried out in the Azores summer of 2015 in collaboration Portuguese universities and marine. Implementation phase for the part of the project which deals with 'Monitoring of sea- and ice conditions' has been completed and efforts are now being focused on test and verification. We now have a stable platform showing positioning of multiple objects, including UAV, vessels and icy bodies. The communication protocol for radio network between the UAV and vessels can be complicated to set up, if we are to allow scaling of the operation. Development of a complete design of an intuitive user interface for configuring network allows for detailed setup. This reduces details for easier operations or users with lower qualifications. Implemented this tool. Dialogue with Viking Supply Ships that have a large fleet of icebreaker vessels see the benefits of the technology developed in this project. Due to decrease in the offshore industry they have currently fewer arctic missions, but see this as a very useful technology for arctic operations. This apply for both offshore related operations and for new trade routes. We conducted tests on Svalbard and demonstrated autonomous detection and tracking of icebergs from a UAV with thermal camera and image analysis. We also conducted successful tests of anti/de-icing system on a UAV. We have implemented navigation tests with Radionor system for positioning. The project has enabled an extensive set of data from UAV flights to be collected. These data sets are now being analyzed and used for development of robust positioning and navigation algorithms that aim to enable UAVs and other unmanned vehicles to operate also when GPS is lost.

For future oil exploration in the Arctic, monitoring of ice conditions and environmental conditions in the operational area will be critical. Remote sensing of ocean performed today with sensors / sampling methods are today operated by large manned aircr aft and ships, satellites, weather buoys and some stationary oil installations. Of these, only satellite systems and military aircraft (P-3 Orion) has the capacity for effective aerial surveillance in Norwegian remote ocean areas of high economic impact. Aircraft operations requires good infrastructure on the ground with access to re-fueling and advanced maintenance facilities. For commercial operations in remote areas from vessels in Arctic locations, transportation of aircraft, crew and maintenance fac ilities to the area of interest is the dominating cost. In such areas, an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) has a large cost saving and potential for higher efficiency and availability in ice and environmental monitoring missions. According to Science Liaiso n in US Coast Guard PACAREA dr. Philip.A.McGillivary, the current situation is that one aircraft is lost in average every 6 missions when operating in Arctic areas. This situation opens for a great innovation potential for the front-end of UAS missions. This research project will focus on research and innovation of both front-end of UAS operations making innovations that will provide more reliable and safe UAS flights in Arctic environment without need for satellite links. The project will also focus on the back-end of UAS operations to present and distribute UAS sensor information for vessels in complex Arctic operations where there is very limited infrastructure in order to make better response and coordinated actions for the vessels and operators.