Enabling smarter sensors onboard UAV payloads >>>Watch the replay: http://ecast.opensystemsmedia.com/410 Payloads onboard Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are enabling out more and more of the U.S. military's Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions. The ISR sensors in the payloads provide critical real-time imagery and intelligence, but often weak radio links force a compromise and distribution of that data. As a result UAV payload designers are packing more and more processing capability behind the sensor, enabling more data filtering at that level so only the most important information gets to the commanders in the field, cutting down on those communication bottlenecks. This e-cast of industry experts will cover how embedded hardware and software designers are tackling this challenge.

1. Data Distribution Platform for
Reconfigurable Unmanned Aircraft
Systems
Edwin de Jong, PhD
edwin@rti.com
Director of Product Management and Strategy, RTI
© 2012 RTI

2. Next-Generation Unmanned
Aircraft Systems (UAS’s)
• Network of
– Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
– Multiple Ground Control Stations (GCS’s)
– Manned aircraft, space systems, ground
troops
• Multiple and changing mission
objectives
• Vision challenge:
– Make data and capabilities of smart sensors
accessible to every relevant participant
© 2012 RTI

3. More Efficient Communication Infrastructure
Utilization
Vehicle LAN
Data Link
Ground Station
LAN
Avionics
Net Centric GIG
Tactical
Backbone
Real-Time
Ground Station
Backend
WAN

4. Baseline Capabilities for UAS
Data Distribution Platform
• Open standards based
– Commonality and interoperability
• True peer-to-peer architecture
– No single point of failure or vulnerability
• Portable to any communication media
– RF, optical links, high-speed interconnects
• Available for heterogeneous environments
– Embedded, low-power, small foot-print, RTOS, ARINC 653
– Mainstream OS’s (Windows, Linux) and CPUs (Intel)
• Certifiable component (DO-178C)
– Integration of UAVs into civil airspace
© 2012 RTI

5. © 2010 Real-Time Innovations, Inc. 5
Communications ―Matrix of Pain‖
• Multiple traffic types:
– Sensor data streams
– Command and control data
– Status, intelligence, mission, supervisory data
• Different traffic requirements for each type:
– Response time, priority, reliability, volume
– Stealth operations
• Challenging communications channel:
– Large latency, low throughput
– Lossy
– Varying availability
– Asymmetric bandwidth (downlink vs uplink)

6. Peer-To-Peer Plug-And-Play DataBus
© 2012 RTI
OMG Data Distribution Service
Control
App
Commands
Sensor
SensorData
ActuatorSensor
SensorData
Display
App

7. Data-Centric Messaging
© 2012 RTI
Distributed Data Model and System State
Source
(Key)
Latitude Longitude Altitude
RADAR1 37.4 -122.0 500.0
UAV2 40.7 -74.0 250.0
LPD3 50.2 -0.7 0.0

8. © 2011 Real-Time Innovations, Inc.
COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL
Hundreds Of Applications

9. DDS Real-Time Quality of Service (QoS)
• Time aware
– Missed deadline notifications
– Time based filtering
– Nanosecond granularity
• Highly tunable reliability protocol
– Balance latency, throughput, reliability
and resource consumption
– Optimize for a wide variety of
interconnects—shared memory to
satellite and radio links
• Historic data available to late or
intermittent consumers
9© 2010 Real-Time Innovations, Inc.

10. Safety-Certifiable UAS Platform
• Scalable product line
for constrained
environments
• Certifiable component
– DO-178C Level A
– ~20K ELOC
• Follows OMG DDS specification
• FACE compliant interface in development
© 2012 RTI • COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL

11. Predator Ground Control Station
© 2011 Real-Time Innovations, Inc. COMPANY
CONFIDENTIAL
• General Atomics
Aeronautical Systems
developed advanced
cockpit ground control
stations (GCSs) for
unmanned aircraft
systems
• Required real-time data
distribution for
acquisition, analysis, and
response of remote
controlled aircraft
• Application delivered in
under 14 months
• DDS speeds
development

12. Unmanned Air Segment (UCS)
• RTI is working with the
OSD to define a
standard architecture
for unmanned vehicles
• RTI chairs the platform
architecture
subcommittee & leads
the data model group
© 2011 Real-Time Innovations, Inc. COMPANY
CONFIDENTIAL

13. Summary
• Next generation UAS require a flexible, safe,
and secure data distribution platform
• DDS provides standards-compliant platform
• Safety-critical implementation to provide
foundation for DO-178 certifiable middleware
© 2011 Real-Time Innovations, Inc. COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL

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