• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.545-554
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• 2017

Among various applications of the High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), this paper has a focus on the Global Positioning System (GPS) utilizing pseudolite and its improved performance, particularly during the multi-purpose missions. In a multi-purpose mission, the HALE UAV follows a specified flight trajectory for both navigation applications and missions. Some of the representative HALE missions are remote exploration, surveillance, reconnaissance, and communication relay. During these operations, the HALE UAV can also be an additional positioning signal source as it broadcast signals using pseudolite. The pseudolite signal can improve the availability, accuracy, and reliability of the GPS particularly in areas with poor signal reception, such as shadowed regions between tall buildings. The improvement in performance of navigation is validated through simulations of multi-purpose missions of the solar-powered HALE UAV in an urban canyon. The simulation includes UAV trajectory generation at stratosphere and uses actual geographical building data. The results indicate that the pseudolite-equipped HALE UAV has the potential to enhance the performance of the satellite navigation system in navigationally degraded regions even during multi-purpose operations.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Surveying, Geodesy, Photogrammetry and Cartography
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.31-38
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• 2012

The geo-referencing accuracy of the images acquired by a UAV based multi-sensor system is affected by the accuracy of the mounting parameters involving the relationship between a camera and a GPS/INS system as well as the performance of a GPS/INS system. Therefore, the estimation of the accurate mounting parameters of a multi-sensor system is important. Currently, we are developing a low altitude multi-sensor system based on a UAV, which can monitor target areas in real time for rapid responses for emergency situations such as natural disasters and accidents. In this study, we suggest a system calibration method for the estimation of the mounting parameters of a multi-sensor system like our system. We also generate simulation data with the sensor specifications of our system, and derive an effective flight configuration and the number of ground control points for accurate and efficient system calibration by applying the proposed method to the simulated data. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method can estimate accurate mounting parameters using over five ground control points and flight configuration composed of six strips. In the near future, we plan to estimate mounting parameters of our system using the proposed method and evaluate the geo-referencing accuracy of the acquired sensory data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2010.11a
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• pp.159-160
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• 2010

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.13 no.1
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• pp.22-29
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• 2010

In this study, computational multi-body dynamics and structural vibration analyses including some impact condition have been conducted for the ground flight test system of the developed smart UAV model. Designed ground test system has four degree-of-freedom motions with limited motion control mechanism. Design safety margin designs for several structural components are tested and verified considering expected critical motions (pitching and rolling) of the test smart UAV model. Computational results for various analysis conditions are practically presented in detail. Futhermore, proper design modifications of the initially designed test equipment in order to guarantee or increase structural safety have been successfully conducted in the design stage.

• Journal of Aerospace System Engineering
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.7-13
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• 2016

Multi disciplinary approach for aerodynamics, structure, propulsion, and flight control system is necessary to develop High Altitude Long Endurance Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (HALE UAV). Various HALE UAV development trends are surveyed to understand their operational requirements. Separating the UAV Take Off Weight by 150kg, Airworthiness implementation direction for HALE UAV is studied under the current Airworthiness regulations. NATO STANAG 4671 and STANAG 4703 Airworthiness certification criteria are analyzed, and their applicability was proposed for future HALE UAV development. In addition, minimization of the risk for UAV is studied by considering probability of cumulative catastrophic failure for HALE UAV. This Hazard Risk Index can support the future UAV Airworthiness Certification Criteria.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Military Science and Technology
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.582-589
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• 2016

Multi-mode monopulse system is widely used for satellite terminal like UAV because of high tracking accuracy and low size/weight profile. In order to calculate tracking error, Multi-mode monopulse system utilizes high-order mode signal, and it should have enough C/N(carrier to noise) level therefore tracking system needs narrow band filtering of received satellite beacon signal as much as possible. However, UAV suffers for beacon frequency drift derived from Doppler effect due to satellite figure 8 movement and UAV maneuvering. Therefore wideband signal processing needs to be considered in advance for exact doppler compensation and consequent time delay. In this paper, we propose the multi-stage Digital Signal processing system for beacon signal, which could minimize the signal delay under high Doppler and low C/N condition.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.274-282
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• 2011

This paper is focused on dynamic modeling and control system design as well as vision based collision avoidance for multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Multi-rotor UAVs are defined as rotary-winged UAVs with multiple rotors. These multi-rotor UAVs can be utilized in various military situations such as surveillance and reconnaissance. They can also be used for obtaining visual information from steep terrains or disaster sites. In this paper, a quad-rotor model is introduced as well as its control system, which is designed based on a proportional-integral-derivative controller and vision-based collision avoidance control system. Additionally, in order for a UAV to navigate safely in areas such as buildings and offices with a number of obstacles, there must be a collision avoidance algorithm installed in the UAV's hardware, which should include the detection of obstacles, avoidance maneuvering, etc. In this paper, the optical flow method, one of the vision-based collision avoidance techniques, is introduced, and multi-rotor UAV's collision avoidance simulations are described in various virtual environments in order to demonstrate its avoidance performance.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.252-259
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• 2011

This paper is focused on dynamic modeling and control system design as well as vision based collision avoidance for multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Multi-rotor UAVs are defined as rotary-winged UAVs with multiple rotors. These multi-rotor UAVs can be utilized in various military situations such as surveillance and reconnaissance. They can also be used for obtaining visual information from steep terrains or disaster sites. In this paper, a quad-rotor model is introduced as well as its control system, which is designed based on a proportional-integral-derivative controller and vision-based collision avoidance control system. Additionally, in order for a UAV to navigate safely in areas such as buildings and offices with a number of obstacles, there must be a collision avoidance algorithm installed in the UAV's hardware, which should include the detection of obstacles, avoidance maneuvering, etc. In this paper, the optical flow method, one of the vision-based collision avoidance techniques, is introduced, and multi-rotor UAV's collision avoidance simulations are described in various virtual environments in order to demonstrate its avoidance performance.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.45 no.3
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• pp.180-190
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• 2017

This paper describes the application of Multi-frame based super-resolution method to enhance resolution of image information from the UAV, and the improvement of UAV's ground target recognition ability. To verify this algorithm, we designed a flight/ground control system, and the UAV, and then the algorithm was validated using the UAV system with ground target. As a result of the comparison between the pre-applied image and post-applied one shows that the RMSE is from 0.0677 to 0.0315, NRMSE is from 7.4030% to 3.5726%, PSNR is from 23.3885dB to 30.0036dB, and SSIM is from 0.6996 to 0.8948. Through these results, we validate this study can enhance the resolution of UAV's image using Multi-frame based super-resolution algorithm.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.11 no.2
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• pp.69-79
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• 2010

This paper describes the experimental framework for the control system design and validation of a rotorcraft unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Our approach follows the general procedure of nonlinear modeling, linear controller design, nonlinear simulation and flight test but uses an indoor-installed multi-camera system, which can provide full 6-degree of freedom (DOF) navigation information with high accuracy, to overcome the limitation of an outdoor flight experiment. In addition, a 3-DOF flying mill is used for the performance validation of the attitude control, which considers the characteristics of the multi-rotor type rotorcraft UAV. Our framework is applied to the design and mathematical modeling of the control system for a quad-rotor UAV, which was selected as the test-bed vehicle, and the controller design using the classical proportional-integral-derivative control method is explained. The experimental results showed that the proposed approach can be viewed as a successful tool in developing the controller of new rotorcraft UAVs with reduced cost and time.