Research Projects

Thanks to the significant improvement in technologies related to UAVs, as the usage of UAVs increases steadily in both civilian and defence applications, threats posed by UAVs or unmanned aerial systems (UAS) also keep on growing in the sense that they could be deployed to destroy protected establishments or human or even aid in cyber-attacks. Even without any malicious intentions, any degradation of UAV motion might lead to danger of ground installations and civilian lives. Even, the usage of a smaller tactical UAS has recently been found as highly effective against mighty high-cost tanks in warfare. To reduce or nullify the adverse effects of such misuses of unauthorized UAVs or UAS, there is a global urge to develop effective counter-UAS (CUAS) systems equipped with efficient anti-drone technologies. Broadly, three different methods have been discussed in literature in this context: ’take down’, ’complete take over’ and ’catching’. Considering the pros and cons of different methods, catching unauthorized UAVs by net-capture method has been recently touted as a front-runner option as it can completely nullify the threat, while the captured UAV could also be brought to the base for further investigations. One of the key challenging tasks in a net-capture mission is guiding single or multiple security-ensuring UAV(s) or pursuer(s) safely to the target UAV in a desirable way. To this end, in this project, novel efficient guidance algorithms would be developed for a fleet of multiple pursuers for their coordinated motion towards the target UAV for net-capturing the same in a terminal configuration-constrained final time-controlled manner. Under this problem framework, two specific scenarios of interest would be considered. In the first scenario, the pursuers are considered to carry separate capture nets individually, where the fleet has to reach close vicinity of the target, from where individual nets could be shot for capturing the target, while also satisfying the requirements of desired relative terminal target-centric configuration, desired approach time and collision avoidance. In the second scenario, the pursuers are considered to carry a bigger capture net together to reach the target for capturing the same, thus constraining the movement of each pursuer due to the kino-dynamic effect of the net and the net centroid’s desired motion to satisfy desired terminal approach direction and time criteria. Validation of the effectiveness of the developed guidance strategies would be subsequently performed by extensive simulation studies in realistic software-in-the-loop set-ups. Finally, hardware-based validation of the same would be carried out using test-beds comprising a fleet of multiple pursuer quadrotors against a target quadrotor and a motion capture system. The developed guidance strategies and software and hardware-based validation set-ups are expected to cater to the growing global and national demand for CUAS technologies.

Net-capture, Terminal approach direction, Final time, Collision avoidance, Kino-dynamic constraints, Multi-agent missions