Conference Program of WCICA 2012

WCICA 2012
Pre-conference Workshops
Workshop V
9:00-16:30, Thursday, July 5, 2012
Room 206, Postgraduate Building, Beijing Institute of Technology
Unmanned Rotorcraft Systems
Chair: Ben M. Chen, National University of Singapore, Singapore
Abstract
In recent years, research and development of unmanned systems have gained much attention in the
academic and military communities worldwide. Topics like unmanned aircraft, underwater explorers, satellites,
and intelligent robotics are widely investigated as they have potential applications in the military and
civilian domains. They are developed to be capable of working autonomously without the interference of
a human pilot. The challenge is that they need to deal with various situations that arise in very complicated
and uncertain environments, such as unexpected obstacles, enemies attacking and device failures.
Besides, they are required to communicate with technical personnel in the ground station. Consideration
of a wide range of factors needs to be taken. Control systems for the unmanned vehicles are required
to integrate not only basic input-output control laws but also high-level functionalities for decision making
and task scheduling. Software systems for unmanned vehicles are required to perform tasks from
hardware driving to the management of device operations, and from traditional input-output control law
implementation to task scheduling and event management.
The proposed workshop aims to explore the research and development of fully functional miniature
rotorcraft unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), and provides a complete treatment of their design. The unmanned
system is an integration of advanced technologies developed in communications, computing, and
control areas. It is a useful testing ground for trialing and implementing modern control techniques despite
the challenges introduced by the limitations on direct scalability between the systems of a small-scale rotorcraft
and those of its full scale counterpart. In this workshop, we intend to cover all the relevant topics
related to fully-functional UAVs, which include hardware platform construction, real-time software system
integration, ground control software systems, aerodynamic modeling, automatic flight control, flight formation
of multiple UAVs, and vision-based tracking and navigation systems. Topics on the development of
micro aerial vehicles, and navigation systems for indoor and outdoor cluttered environments will also be
highlighted.
It is a full day workshop with a total of 5 to 6 lecturing hours.
Description of Workshop
Lecture: Ben M. Chen, Guowei Cai, Feng Lin, Xiangxu Dong, National University of Singapore
Biao Wang, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics
List of topics:
∙ Introduction to unmanned system
∙ Systematic UAV platform construction
∙ Software systems integration
∙ Aerodynamic modeling
∙ Automatic flight control system design
∙ Flight formation of multiple UAVs
∙ Vision-based tracking and navigation
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