Mechanical Engineering Seminar

Small Unmanned Autonomy and Cooperation for Aerial Vehicles Tim McLain, Ph.D.

Mechanical Engineering Department

Brigham Young University

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have the potential for significant impact in a broad array of military, civil, and commercial applications. The successful use of small UAVs in recent military conflicts has been well documented and has given rise to optimism regarding their potential. To have the impact projected in future military systems, significant improvements in small UAV capabilities will be required. The potential for commercial applications of UAVs is equally broad, but significantly less developed. Possible applications include environmental monitoring, land management, law enforcement, and precision agriculture.

Two barriers limit the wide-spread use of UAVs in both military and civil applications: cost and ease of use. Current military UAVs, although much cheaper than manned aircraft, are expensive and challenging to fly. Even a small UAV requires a team of operators to pilot it from a remote ground station. Instead of multiple operators flying a single UAV, we envision a single operator commanding a team of UAVs to work cooperatively to achieve a mission objective. Our goal is to create technology to enable the widespread use of smaller, more affordable, yet very capable UAVs. This presentation will address our recent progress in the areas of path following, precision landing, obstacle avoidance, and cooperative control for UAVs.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007, 10:30 am


3540 Engineering


Refreshments served at 10:15 am


Biography

Tim McLain is a professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at Brigham Young University where he currently serves as department chair. He received BS and MS degrees in mechanical engineering from BYU in 1986 and 1987. He worked for two years at Sarcos, Inc. before returning to graduate school. He received a PhD in mechanical engineering from Stanford University in 1995. Professor McLain has been actively involved in the control of air and underwater vehicles and robotic systems for the past 19 years. During the summers of 1999 and 2000, he was a visiting scientist at the Air Force Research Laboratory. Since that time, he has pursued research involving the modeling and control of miniature UAVs, real-time trajectory generation for UAVs, and cooperative control of UAV teams. He is the author of over 60 peer-reviewed articles. His UAV research has attracted the support of the Air Force, the Army, DARPA, NASA, and NSF. He is a senior member of IEEE and AIAA and is a member of the AIAA Unmanned Systems Program Committee.