Black Swift Technologies (BST) has secured a contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to create a commercially viable solution for GPS-denied navigation tailored for unmanned aerial systems (UAS) operating beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS).
This innovative technology will be implemented in drones utilized for NOAA’s national Geodetic Survey,which is responsible for mapping approximately 95,000 miles of the U.S. coastline. Under current FAA regulations, UAS operators are required to maintain visual contact with their aircraft, which complicates coastline surveys and limits mapping to just two miles at a time before needing to reposition.The prosperous development of this advanced navigation system is crucial for obtaining certification for BVLOS operations.
Ensuring safe drone flights hinges on precise aircraft positioning. Solely depending on GPS can pose challenges, as it is indeed susceptible to jamming, spoofing, and signal degradation in areas like urban environments, high latitudes, or elevated altitudes. BST’s goal is to create a reliable secondary navigation system through their diverse-source global positioning system (DS-GPS) technology, which will deliver accurate position updates in GPS-denied environments by leveraging augmented sensor suites and sophisticated machine learning techniques. This system will utilize a carefully weighted fusion of advanced machine vision algorithms alongside triangulated signals of chance for vehicle localization.
the DS-GPS framework incorporates a standard GPS receiver enhanced with supplementary sensors that assess inertial velocity and absolute positioning. This capability enables the aircraft to recognize when the GPS signal is compromised due to spoofing or environmental factors. Additional sensors, such as cameras and software-defined radios, can then take over as the primary navigational tools, providing position and velocity data from various sources.
Dr. Jack Elston, CEO of Black Swift Technologies, stated: “Facilitating BVLOS operations within the National Airspace System primarily revolves around enhanced sensing capabilities. Both government and commercial operators are eager to conduct missions over extended distances. These users represent a range of currently underutilized UAS applications due to existing capabilities and regulations—such as aerial imaging, environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, and infrastructure inspection.”
“Black Swift Technologies has previously collaborated with NOAA to provide systems applicable for both coastal work and atmospheric research. This project under the small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program is a natural progression of the machine learning techniques BST has been advancing for unmanned aircraft. A key aspect of this initiative is employing machine vision (including optical flow and SLAM) to ensure the safe operation of UAS in the event of GPS loss. The work related to coastline inspection and mapping would greatly benefit from BVLOS capabilities, considerably reducing the time operators need to spend in the field.”
