ERAU Unmanned Systems by Raymond DeMarco

It seems anywhere a human eye is needed, there is a possibility to get a UAV in that space.  You continue to see the potential roles an unmanned aerospace system (UAS) can take on.  With commercial of the shelf (COTS) parts becoming more available, a UAV can play the role of inspection in confined or difficult to reach places. Autonomous Elevator Inspection Hong Kong is a density populated city with a great deal of vertical travel through buildings.  There are over 63,000 elevators totaling 30 million trips a day.  They have experienced a rise in elevator mishaps from 248 in 2010 to 483 in 2015.  Obviously, elevators need to be cleaned, maintained and inspected monthly.  The ‘manned’ inspection of elevators consists of high zone floors and low zone floors that technicians do not have a way to check since they are not accessible.  There are other issues with this type of maintenance such as lack of qualified technicians, high cost and lack of ...

During the cold war era, reconnaissance missions were left to the U-2, and SR-71 amongst others.  These missions required endurance stretching the human pilot to their limits.  Unmanned aircraft development increased.  The technology at the time to remotely fly and gather the information was problematic with communication systems and sensors that were inadequate and often failed.  UAV accidents can be classified to the categories of human factors, maintenance, aircraft, and unknown.  Human factors can be classified to more specific factors such as issue with alerts/alarms, display design, procedural error, skill based error, or other (Williams, 2004).  In the accident report data collected  in 2004, the percentage of human factors varies across different aircraft from 21% - 68%.  For most unmanned aircraft, electromechanical failure was a greater causal factor than human error. The Navy’s RQ-2 Pioneer requires an external pilot for takeof...