Area I, Inc. — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: A2.02

Description

Area-I, Incorporated personnel have led the design, fabrication, and flight testing of fourteen unmanned aircraft, one manned aircraft, and numerous advanced guidance, control, and avionics packages. Area-I has continued this tradition in its development of the Resource allocation for Multi-Agent Planning, or ReMAP, guidance and navigation system for unmanned aircraft. The ReMAP system, whose core function is to significantly reduce operator workload by providing mission-driven autonomy to unmanned aircraft in single- and multi-agent scenarios, has already undergone extensive hardware-in-the-loop simulation-based evaluations and the work proposed herein will further mature the ReMAP technology through actual flight-based evaluations on Area-I aircraft. Core capabilities provided by the ReMAP system include: 1) A small, lightweight, inexpensive avionics package that provides real-time mission-driven guidance capabilities to unmanned air vehicles 2) A system architecture that is platform and autopilot agnostic and can therefore be utilized by a wide array of aircraft with varying performance levels 3) A multi-agent planning and control algorithm to allow multiple aircraft to coordinate and thereby maximize mission capabilities and results 4) Aircraft and obstacle avoidance capabilities, including ADS-B In integration, providing autonomous avoidance maneuvers or operator warnings 5) A mission planning toolbox to provide situational awareness and mission management to operators, usable as a stand-alone system or integrated with existing mission planning tools such as NASA's Airborne Science Mission Tools Suite