A MISSION PLANNER AND NAVIGATION SYSTEM FOR THE ARARA PROJECT
Jr . O, Luciano de Oliveira Neris · 2002
The ARARA project - Autonomous and RadioAssisted Reconnaissance Aircraft, is centered on the use of Unmanned Aircraft for image acquisition. Its main goal is the replacement of conventional aircraft used to take aerial photographs for the monitoring of crops and areas under environmental control. This work describes the SiNaCoM, a Navigation and Mission Control System for the ARARA project. The SiNaCom, jointly with a stability augmentation system (autopilot), will provide ARARA aircraft with fully autonomous mission accomplishment capability. The SiNaCoM is split into two modules: the Mission Planner and the Navigation Controller. The first module allows the user to define the route of a flight and a set of tasks to be carried out at each waypoint in this route. The second module controls the navigation of the aircraft along the route defined by the user, performing course corrections due to wind gusts. Navigation is based on the GPS positioning system and a set of on-board navigational sensors. The SiNaCoM has been bench tested and should be flying by the end of this year.