Abstract

Traditional sensor data can be augmented with new data sources such as roadmaps and geographical information system (GIS) Lidar/video to offer emerging unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and urban air mobility (UAM) a new level of situational awareness. This presentation will summarize my group’s research to identify, process, and utilize GIS, map, and other real-time data sources during nominal and emergency flight planning. Specific efforts have utilized machine learning to automatically map flat rooftops as urban emergency landing sites, incorporate cell phone data into an occupancy map for risk-aware flight planning, and extend airspace geofencing into a framework capable of managing all traffic types in complex airspace and land use environments. The presentation will end with videos illustrating recent work to experimentally validate the continuum deformation cooperative control strategy in the University of Michigan’s new M-Air netted flight facility.

 

Bio

Ella M. Atkins is a University of Michigan professor of aerospace engineering, associate director of the Robotics Institute, and director of the Autonomous Aerospace Systems (A2SYS) Lab. She previously served on the Aerospace Engineering faculty at the University of Maryland, College Park. Dr. Atkins is editor-in-chief of the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (JAIS), AIAA Fellow, IEEE senior member, small public airport owner/operator (Shamrock Field, Brooklyn, MI) and private pilot. She was a member of the Institute for Defense Analysis Defense Science Studies Group. Dr. Atkins holds a B.S. and M.S. in aeronautics and astronautics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and M.S. and Ph.D. in computer science and engineering from the University of Michigan. She has served on the National Academies Aeronautics and Space Engineering Board and as a member of the Defense Science Studies Group (DSSG)..