This proposal is to develop an advanced low cost, highly modular UAV system capable of supporting various NASA MTPE missions. A need for the capability to provide extended ground truthing, repeat coverage for environmental monitoring, rapid response time, flexibility of operating performance and ease of payload integration have been well defined for many research and commercial applications. A wide variety of applications exists in the commercial and government markets for both civil/environmental and defense/intelligence. Freewing Aerial Robotics Corporation (Freewing) will utilize its unique Freewing Tilt-Body design UAV to develop a highly stable remote sensing UAV system. This system will have the capability of accepting any number of small stand-alone remote sensing instruments, and therefore will support various research and applications requirements. In Phase I Freewing will: 1) conduct an analysis of MTPE requirements and develop a detailed conceptual design indicating how advanced UAV systems can meet these requirements, 2) conduct multivariate parametric analysis using its existing computer models and extensive wind tunnel data to define performance criteria versus mission requirements, 3) develop a conceptual design for an advanced, multipurpose UAV system, and 4) develop a preliminary system test plan and operations concept.
