Field-Testing of a UAV-UGV Team for GNSS-Denied Navigation in Subterranean Environments

Jason Gross, Matteo De Petrillo, Jared Beard, Hayden Nichols, Tommy Swiger, Ryan Watson, Connor Kirk, Cagri Kilic, Jacob Hikes, Emily Upton, Derek Ross, Matt Russell, Yu Gu, and Christopher Griffin

Abstract:	We present the system design, navigation algorithm formulation, and field-testing results for a cooperative unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team designed for operation in a GNSS-denied subterranean environment. Central to the presented system design, to support longer UAV mission duration, the sensing and computation performed on-board the UAV is assumed to be limited in order to reduce UAV payload mass, and the UGV assumes the responsibility of mapping the unknown environment and tracking the state of the UAV. To achieve this, the UGV is instrumented with an omnidirectional fish-eye camera, a 128 channel 3D scanning LIDAR, and an ultra wideband (UWB) ranging radio that is linked with a radio on the UAV. In addition, the UAV shares inertial measurement unit and laser altimeter data to the UGV over a local WiFi network. This paper outlines the UAV localization algorithm for the UAV/UGV team and presents results from multiple flight tests that were conducted in a large indoor flight testing tunnel environment that is instrumented with a VICON motion capture system for providing reference solutions.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 32nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2019) September 16 - 20, 2019 Hyatt Regency Miami Miami, Florida
Pages:	2112 - 2124
Cite this article:	Gross, Jason, De Petrillo, Matteo, Beard, Jared, Nichols, Hayden, Swiger, Tommy, Watson, Ryan, Kirk, Connor, Kilic, Cagri, Hikes, Jacob, Upton, Emily, Ross, Derek, Russell, Matt, Gu, Yu, Griffin, Christopher, "Field-Testing of a UAV-UGV Team for GNSS-Denied Navigation in Subterranean Environments," Proceedings of the 32nd International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GNSS+ 2019), Miami, Florida, September 2019, pp. 2112-2124. https://doi.org/10.33012/2019.16912
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