SCIENTIFIC SYSTEMS CO INC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: ST18C-006

Description

In this effort, SSCI and its sub-contractor SAFRAN Optics 1 will develop OASES-Mini, a low-cost, low-SWAP visual perception and processing capability to enable safe launch and recovery, collision avoidance, and mission autonomy for small Group 3 UAS platforms. The goal is to develop these capabilities through the design and development of new sensors and innovative methods to process sensor data resulting in a hardware package with a threshold weight of less than 10lbs and objective weight of less than 5 pounds. This represents a significant reduction of hardware currently used to provide these capabilities today. The system must provide this SWAP reduction while providing anytime-anywhere landing and take-off capability for UAS to support distributed operations over land and sea, and meet the requirements for the department of defense (DoD) Due Regard detection and collision avoidance. This proposed SBIR effort will build on the Phase I work in developing a vision-based GNC system for station-keeping (SPRINT), and previous SSCI efforts in visual relative navigation and collision threat detection, to develop the OASES-mini system. The proposed Base effort will mitigate the significant technical risks associated with showing the feasibility of a low- Size, Weight and Power (SWAP) system that can meet both the payload constraints and performance requirements of UAS platforms of interest, consider the ability of the OASES-mini visual technologies to work in conjunction with complementary measurement sources and provide a preliminary system design for such a system. In addition, Option tasking has been proposed to complete the development of a Rugged Prototype OASES-Mini system and include additional capabilities such as non-GPS navigation and collaborative autonomy behaviors.