The fully
autonomous multi-sensor anti-collision system for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles system
has been developed by the Italian Aerospace Research Center in collaboration
with the Department of Aerospace Engineering of the University of Naples
“Federico II”. The research project is entitled TECVOL-II and is funded in the
frame of the National Aerospace Research Program. The system prototype was
firstly installed on board a manned laboratory aircraft equipped for automatic
control, therefore flight tests verified the adequacy of attained performances
for supporting fully autonomous flight (CollisionAvoidance.mp4). The obstacle
detection and tracking function is performed by a multi-sensor configuration
made up by a pulsed Ka-band radar, two visible (panchromatic and color) video
cameras, two infrared video cameras, and two computers. One computer is
dedicated to real time sensor fusion and communication with the radar and the
flight control computer (by means of a deterministic data bus), the other is
devoted to image processing. Based on the tracking estimates and of a
Collision Avoidance Software, the flight control computer generates and
follows in real-time a proper escape trajectory.