Integration of Sensor Characteristics into Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Route (Re-) Planning

In previous research into unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operator stations, functionality has been developed to support the navigator during mission execution (Tadema and Theunissen, 2003). It has been concluded that, due to the increase in requirements on the navigation plan inside and near the theater of operations (TOO), increased interaction between the UAV crew is required. The current research has focused on route planning based on sensor deployment, for situations where planning is a cooperative effort of geographically collocated and dispersed UAV operators. This paper presents two concepts to facilitate payload driven navigation planning inside and near the TOO. First, it introduces the capability of flight path mission requests to structure the UAV crew collaboration process. Secondly, it proposes to use spatially integrated depictions of navigation data regarding the sensor deployment to enhance the operator´s situation awareness (SA). To demonstrate the possibilities of the concepts for a future UAV mission management system, the Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) avionics research group is extending a UAV mission management system research environment. A first step has been made by adding functionality to augment the UAV crew cooperation with flight path mission requests. Future extensions of functionality regard three-dimensional (3D) perspective display design to enhance the operators SA with respect to the sensor deployment and route planning