Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) have become a key component of US military power and are likely to have an increasing role in reconnaissance, surveillance, communication and combat. UAS operations are affected by weather and other environmental effects, but usually have less capability to see, react to, and endure adverse environments than manned aircraft. Weather effects thus become a crucial part of both operational planning and execution of UAS missions. The ...
The Army Research Laboratory, Battlefield Environment Division has been developing an Aviation Weather Routing Tool (AWRT) to address the issue of weather impacts upon various Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) missions. The AWRT depicts regions of adverse weather impacts and then searches for alternate routes that minimize those impacts. A related factor that has yet to be included in AWRT involves UAS fuel consumption. Fuel consumption rates, remaining fuel quantity, and ...
Requirements: What the User Must Decide: *Are the mission waypoints/altitudes OK? *How might the weather situation change? *How will the vehicle and its sensors be affected? *What the User Needs: An automated route optimization system.
Reports by Author
