Inside Unmanned Systems

APR-MAY 2017

Inside Unmanned Systems provides actionable business intelligence to decision-makers and influencers operating within the global UAS community. Features include analysis of key technologies, policy/regulatory developments and new product design.

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59 unmanned systems inside April/May 2017 ENGINEERING. PRACTICE. POLICY. of schemes in the early stages, Sloane said. The original concept was to launch from an autonomous surface vehicle (ASV) so they started with the company's C-Enduro, a long endurance ASV used to safely and cost effectively collect data at sea. The ASV is a catamaran, which, at first, the team thought would make it easy to drive over the AUVs and scoop them up for recovery. But that system has a small payload capac- ity, limiting the size of the launch. That's why they upgraded to the ASV Global's C-Worker platform, a more robust vehicle that can carry up to 24 micro subs in stacks of three. The launch and recovery system can fit on different ASVs, ASV Global Managing Director Dan Hook said, and is a novel containerized launch system with over the side cradle recovery. Once the deployed AUVs finish their mission, they return to where they were launched for recovery. "The biggest challenge is the recovery component," Hook said. "Identif y ing and then recovering such a small sur- face AUV, especially in challenging sea conditions, can get quite difficult as the weather gets bad." Being able to recover the AUVs, ensur- ing secure communication between multi- ple unmanned systems, are the "key" chal- lenges, said Philip McGillivary, science liaison for the U.S. Coast Guard, Pacific Area, in the Department of Homeland Security. A data communication link is used to dow nload data from the AU Vs to the ASV before they're recovered, Hook said. Then that data is transmitted back to the shore or the ship from the ASV's more powerful communication system, ensuring clients quickly get the informa- tion they're after. "The AUVs are very small and low pow- er, so they don't carry much in the way of communication," Hook said. "The ASV acts as sort of the mother ship." Testing The project team is currently testing the vehicles and plans to have them ready by the end of the PNT ResilieNce GPS Vulnerability Testing The threats are real. And increasing every day. if you are responsible for mission-critical PNT applications, let us help you evaluate your risk to jamming, spoofing, or any other threat. Our GPs/GNss simulation platform is the best way to harden GPs-based systems. Put us to the test. + 1 585.321.5800 spectracom.com

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