Enabling Dynamic Parametric Scans for Unmanned Aircraft System Remote Sensing Missions

This paper presents a methodology for performing dynamic and parametric scanning operations for unmanned aircraft systems on remote sensing missions. Most unmanned aircraft system autopilots only support elemental waypoint-based guidance, whereas most remote sensing applications imply the surveillance of wide areas that require the execution of elaborate scan patterns. Moreover, the long endurance of unmanned aircraft system platforms allows one to envisage future operations in which the areas to be scanned may dynamically change during an unmanned aircraft system flight. Using elemental waypoints to design and potentially update scan patterns is a time-consuming, inefficient, and highly restrictive strategy. This paper discusses how to provide dynamic parametric scans over an area-navigation-like flight-plan manager that feeds basic waypoints to the unmanned aircraft system autopilot. Preliminary results demonstrate the feasibility and flexibility of the proposed method based on flight simulations of complex unmanned aircraft system surveillance operations.