Study On Enhanced Synthetic Vision Technology For UAV Ground Operation Station

With more and more widespread application of UAV, how to ensure the flight safety and mission execution gradually becomes a major challenge to the UAV control personnel. Especially the Degraded Visual Environment(DVE) that is caused by rain, snow, fog, dust, night vision and other bad weather conditions may severely reduce the situational awareness of the UAV control personnel, then threaten the flight safety as well as mission efficiency of UAV. Synthetic Vision Systems(SVS) and Enhanced Vision Systems(EVS) has been demonstrated in the field of manned aircraft that they can provide effective external scene display outside the cockpit for pilots, penetrate DVE and guarantee flight safety. To promote the flight safety and mission efficiency of UAV in a low level complex environment, to solve the influences of DVE for UAV, and to enhance the ability of the UAV control personnel for situational awareness, an Enhanced Synthetic Vision Systems(ESVS) that is used for UAV ground station is proposed in this thesis. The author's major contributions are outlined as follows:Firstly, the significance and the current situation of the research on this issue are analyzed, the concepts, connotation, function, structure and composition of SVS, EVS as well as UAV ground station are discussed. Secondly, the UAV ground station framework and ESVS are designed, the meaning and function of the system components and modules are described, and there are three core components: sensor data imaging, instrument symbol generation, enhanced perception processing are established. Thirdly, the causes and solutions of DVE are analyzed, the imaging effect and performance of several imaging sensors are compared, the simulation method of the DVEs and sensor images are researched. Fourthly, the flight instruments that are used for UAV has been designed, includes PFD, HUD, engine instruments, digital map, radar display, navigation display and so on. Meanwhile, the three-dimensional conformal symbol of the obstacle and a landing instrument set of the unmanned helicopter are designed. Finally, it focuses on enhanced perception technology,such as Vertical Profile Display, Highway In The Sky(HITS), Terrain Awareness and Warning System(TAWS), Threat Zone Indication. The principles and implementation methods are discussed in detail, its important role in enhancing the situational awareness of control personnel is analyzed.According to the above researches, computer simulation method is used in this paper, aimed at unmanned drone helicopter landing and UAV reconnaissance at low altitude, the enhanced synthetic vision presentation software is achieved. The DVE simulation and sensor imaging are used as the scene outside the cockpit. The flight instrument and the three-dimensional conformal symbol are used for flight status information and the obstacle on the ground. The enhanced perception technology is used for promoting the spatial cognition of the UAV control personnel. The results show that ESVS can strongly support UAV task, reduce the difficulty of understanding the scene information, improve the recognition speed of obstacles, relieve the workload and mental stress of the control personnel, and effectively promote situational awareness of the UAV control personnel. On the other hand, the software can be used as simulation and training platform for subsequent test.