PHYSICAL SCIENCES INC. — Department of Defense SBIR Phase I: Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) proposes to develop an innovative approach for dramatically i

Description

Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI) proposes to develop an innovative approach for dramatically improving localization in GPS denied environments for aerial and ground robots with Robust Indoor/Outdoor Unified All-Source localization and navigation. RIO-UAS is an innovative combination algorithm-hardware solution for outdoor localization and indoor SLAM photo-reconnaissance (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) in GPS denied environments. At 150g the processor and sensor-suite unit is designed for deployment on PSI"s"InstantEye"micro-quad or can be integrated onto other platforms. Based on the well-tested SURF + FastSLAMv2.0 fusion algorithm, RIO-UAS can include"all-sources"of additional information including RF ranging, floor plans, HALO imagery, and topological maps., with typical sensor information; mono or stereo video, EO, LIDAR, and IR / sonic ranging. This innovative approach provides improved performance tailored to UAV and AUGV missions in unified operation across three modes; indoor (relative localization), outdoor airborne, (WGS 84) and outdoor ground (WGS 84) . This will result in the first out-of-the-box-ready, localizing, mapping, and reconnaissance micro-quad or strapdown unit that is independent of GPS. After autonomously mapping and photographing a GPS-denied region (indoor, canyon), the returned data can be presented to the user as a virtual"walk through"of the reconnaissance imagery registered to a map.