UK researchers seek resilience for UAVs in GNSS-denied environments
The research team will test concepts with an aircraft from Windracers. (Photo: Windracers)
UK project seeks to improve control of drone swarms in contested environments.
A project involving industry and academia in the UK aims to prove how a single remote operator and local safety pilot can handle multiple UAVs and maintain continuous communication in GNSS-denied environments.
The Innovate UK-funded Phase 3 of the Future Flights Challenge includes Helix Geospace, Windracers, Distributed Avionics plus Bristol and Sheffield universities.
Researchers will focus on demonstrating how large UAVs with a maximum take-off weight of 450kg can be used to solve environmental protection concerns in GNSS-denied environments, functioning in swarms and utilising a combination of digital twinning, computer vision, and real-world flight testing in the Antarctic.
Helix Geospace stated on 25 August that it is providing its Dielectrix antenna system ‘to detect jamming and spoofing events, pinpoint their precise source and then eliminate their impact, maintaining the accuracy and resilience of GNSS PNT [positioning, navigation and timing] in GNSS-denied environments’.
Oliver Leister, chief technology officer at Helix Geospace, said: ‘Due to the weak and vulnerable nature of the GNSS signal, the signal is extremely susceptible to jamming and spoofing; our solution does not rely on additional sensors to aid position data, which could be compromised in various environments.’
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