Interdrone 2015 Notes

From Interdrone 2015

People

• Dyan Gibbens - currently owns two drone-based companies. I was very impressed with Dyan and think she could be a valuable consultant in assisting with the regulatory challenges.
• Jim Williams - former FAA employee that wrote much of the new regulation regarding UAVs.

Areas for Further Research

• Dronekit
• DroneCode
• Driden model (?)
• Stereo Vision (see OpenCV)
• OpenCV
• Gimli Glider
• BeagleBoard - Rasberry Pi Competitor

Crowd Analytics through Facial Recognition

Eyeris

Software package called ImoVu - Deep Learning architecture for image processes that imitates human recognition

• Vision for Embedded Systems
• 97% accurate
• 140 FPS on i7 processor
• Ambient Intelligence (AML) - Electronic environments that are sensitive and responsive to the presence of people.
• Minimal required resolution for a face: 50x50px, Ideal 70x70px
• Does not use FACS
• Uses OpenCV open source software to identify faces and for some devices, sometimes falls back to the devices facial recognition
• This software is not useful for things or places (only people)

• Allows for
  • Access to Hard to reach places
  • Large coverage area
  • Eye Level
  • Improved angles

• Trained For
  • 5 Major ethnic groups
  • 5 age groups
  • 2 genders
  • 10 lightning conditions
  • 13 head poses
  • supervised and unsupervised
  • different camera structures
  • different resolution
  • different face attributes
    • Joy
    • Surprise
    • Sadness
    • Disgust
    • Anger
    • Fear
    • Neutral

3D Mapping

• mark@visuallaw.com
• sketchfab - 3d modeling software
• pointcloud
• DroneDeploy - android app for creating 3d mesh and orthomap ($300 a month)
• Pix4D - the primary software for creating 3 modeling of terrain
• Adjisoft Photoscan (?) - Competitor to pix4d
• Autodesk is working on comparable software

Flying in Wind: State Estimation for UAS

• Douglas Weibel, PHD
• Wind - a vector velocity field with spatial and temporal variation
• Wind has structured (predictive) and random properties (turbulence) that are difficult to model
• State
  • Attitude (Roll, Pitch, Yaw, Roll Rate, Pitch Rate, Yaw Rate)
  • Attitude Rates
  • Position
  • Velocity
• Other possible states
  • Wind Paramters
  • Height over ground
  • Battery energy
  • gyro bias
  • accel bias
• Attitude Estimation
  • Stabilized Sub Platform
  • Whabba's problem
  • Integration
  • Combined
• Contempory Sensors
  • Gyros
  • Accelerometers
  • Magnetomers
  • GPS Baseline
  • Thermopile
  • Elecstratic potential
  • Opical sensors

• Federated Filter
• Attitude Filter ( Cascaded Filter )

Applications of Rotation Matrices and Matrix-Vector Algebra in Autopilots

Bill Premerlani

• A rotation matrix is a linear homegeneous transformation
• Tensor

FAA Regulations: Past, Present, and Future

• Jim Williams

• Drones are named from the first unmanned aircraft in Britain during WW1
• [1]
• FAA cant regulate anything congress doesn't give them authority over
• Required for an aircraft to be regulated
  • Approved Pilot
  • Aircraft Certificate
• Code of Federal Regulations (91.113) - you must be able to see and avoid other aircraft (thus-- you need a 333)
• COWA - Certificate of Waiver or Authorization
• AC - 91.57A new AC that regulates RC hobby
• AC's are not regulatory
• CFR 14 91.13 Careless and Reckless Operation
  • Aircraft operations for the purpose of air navigation. No person may operate an aircraft in a careless or reckless manner so as to endanger the life or property of another.
  • Don't do stupid things that put people in the air at risk.
• 14 CFR Part 107 creates new rules for small unmanned aircraft systems
• Examples
  • CNN is looking at tethered aircraft (tether provides power) - Power Electronics 01
  • Railroad wants UAV to monitor tracks in front of trains looking for issues with tracks
  • Farmers are looking for ways to safely use UAV without LOS by monitoring airspace for incoming commercial aircraft
• FAA - Department of Transportation interactions take a lot of time
• Most insurance policies will not cover accidents caused by commercial use of drones
• Some companies with 333 exemptions are suing companies operating without the proper exemptions

Embedded Computer Vision for Safer, Faster Drones

• Goksel Dedeoglu, Founder PercepTonic, LLC
• Computer vision algorithms analyze images to extract information about the world (allowing machines that perceive)
  • Size and shape
  • 3d position
  • Identity
  • Expression
  • Location
  • Motion
  • Illumniation, weather, etc.
• Two things relevant for drone operation:
  • Motion
  • Depth
• Inertial sensors
  • Identifies key points
• GerbilBall is a safety sphere enabled by real-time depth sensing
  • Stereo-based
  • Has limitations on how close the two objects can be to each other
  • Can have as many cameras as needed to create a realtime look in all directions (expensive)
  • For objects that don't move often, may be cheaper to build an internal model of what has been seen
• Best guess for power efficient vision computation is heterogeneous and multi-core architechtures
• Examples
  • Fire Phone makes good use of computer vision with multiple cameras
  • Dyson 360 Roomba
• http://www.cvisioncentral.com/evw2015
• http://www.embedded-vision.com

DroneKit

• A single API that runs onboard drones
  • Cloud REST API
  • Android SDK ("3DR Services")
  • Python SDK
• Dronekit exists as a compatibility layer on top of the autopilot
• Onboard and offboard MAVLink
• Droneshare.com
  • REST API (speaks JSON)
  • Used for storing fetching displaying logs and other data
• Full autopilot control from mobile
• Built on Android AIDL infrastructure
• Examples
  • Tower, DroidPlanner, Tower Pebble, Tower Wear, Solo
• DK Python
• "Solo is the best tool for aerial video".
  • Runs on PixHawk 2 (unreleased)
  • SDK for Solo dev.3dr.com
    • Prototype in Python without low level system knowledge

• Pixhawk
• tim@3dr.com

Structural Inspections

• 6 weeks to 190 days to get 333
• Several of the participants have run into issues with RF interference. One person had a fly away in downtown LA. It was identified as interference caused by a nearby consumer WIFI device. One person recommended an RF analysis as part of the pre-flight.
• Military-grade components have much better shielding and seem to handle interference better.

Human Factors

• Alexander Stimson - alex@autonometrics.com *

• In order to keep from overwhelming the operator
  • Multimodal - Use things like sound, or LEDS, to indicate status
• Multiple HSC Tasks = divided attention problem - most people don't multitask well
  • Encourage task switching efficiency
  • Minimize the switching costs
  • Ensure that the operator is focused on the appropriate tasks
    • Procedures
    • Structure based abstractions - colors, arrows, etc.
    • Automation Cueing
    • Cues/alerts should be appropriate and not overwhelming. There is a cognitive cost to processing cues. Don't make the problem worse.
    • Consider Interruption Lag cueing-- an early warning about something that will eventually become important (the upcoming block in tetris) - studies are not conclusive on effectivity
    • Increase role of automation
    • Provide stopping rules - let the operator know when to move on
• Humans are not rational decision makers
• Three general classes of heuristics
  • Representative - humans are generally insensitive to prior probability (what happened yesterday)
  • Anchoring - early assumptions have more weight than new information
  • Availability -
• Bias
  • Confirmation Bias - once a hypothesis has been made, people tend to try and support it
  • Assimilation Bias - once a hypothesis has been made, new evidence tends to be bias towards that hypothesis
  • Automation Bias - when you have an autonomous system, people tend to give it too much weight
• Supervisory Monitoring of Operations - System identifies that the operator is overwhelmed
  • Use metrics to identify poor performance
  • Can be human or automated
  • How to handle an overloaded operator
    • Notifiy the operator
    • Redistribute task load to other team members
    • Bring in more team members
    • Modify the mission objectives (accept it)
• Distributed Decision Making
  • Building Situational Awareness
    • Ensley Model
      • Perception
      • Comprehension
      • Projection
  • Use Collaboration to Increase SA
    • Same time and place - face to face
    • Same Time/Different Place - radio/video
    • Different Time/Different Place - email, text
    • Different Time/Same Place - log books, etc.
• Trust and Reliability
  • Design a system that is trusted and utilized, but not overly trusted so operators become complacent
    • Provide metrics on reliability so that the operator knows how well they should trust the system
      • Is it raining?
      • How reliable are my sensors?
      • What resolution is the data
      • Number of active satellites
    • Keep metrics frequent and appropriate
      • Don't show old information that doesn't matter anymore
• Role of Automation
  • There are different levels of automation (1-10) from operator does nothing to operator is overworked
  • The level may need to change depending on the operators effectivity
  • Use cuing
    • Environment (time/event)
    • Psychophysiological
    • Performance metrics
• Accountability
  • Don't shoot kids!

Fuzzy Logic Control Systems for Fixed-Wing Drones

• FLC provide a simpler method for controlling fixed wing aircraft