In this SBIR effort a small business company Torrey Pines Logic proposes to develop and implement a novel Ship Relative Instant Multispectral Positioning System (SHRIMPS) for rapid initialization and real time acquisition of relative pose for navigation inputs to the flight control system based on infrared multispectral guidance and novel electrooptic sensors with the goal of meeting the challenging Navy requirements for fully automated landing of the fixed wing aircraft on an aircraft carrier. The selection of eye safe infrared wavelength band around 1.5 microns for the system operation minimizes the risks for the pilots, maximizes signal-to-noise ratio due to lower solar background, expands the system reach due to lower scattering in the atmosphere and allows for the overall system cost reduction due to the use of readily available components from developed industry of optical communications. In Phase I, we will determine the feasibility of rapidly initializing detection, tracking and relative pose estimation through concept modelling and breadboard prototype testing. In Phase II the team will develop and implement sensor processing for real time PS-PN capability and demonstrate the system performance in a variety of simulated sea and atmospheric conditions with open loop demonstration of the PS-PN capability in flight.
Benefit: The novel proximity guidance systems will enable a number of new applications with a strong and growing commercial potential of ongoing robotic and drone revolution including driverless cars control and parking, unmanned package delivery and service with flying drones. The implementation of the automatic landing system with real time position reading and control will provide safety improvement for commercial and military aviation as well as simplify the logistics and operation of unmanned airborne platforms including the effortless setup of no fly zones and safety barriers. The use of infrared and eye safe guiding with no RF emission will have minimal impact on local RF transmissions and will be safe enough to be used in residential areas. Additional product development benefits include optical data transmission improvement for local data access and guiding beacon implementation for residential automated vehicles.
Keywords: SHIP RELATIVE NAVIGATION, SHIP RELATIVE NAVIGATION, Multispectral, Automated Landing, electro-optic.
