Zaslin

Design bureau / Ukraine

Swarm Detection Navigation

Onboard systems for UAVs. All computing runs on the aircraft.

Products

01

Swarm control

One operator flies one aircraft. The others hold their place in formation: they measure each other’s position and correct the flight on board. Formation changes on a single command.

Aircraft in a group
Up to 6
Tolerance in simulation
0.75 m
GNSS
Not required
Ground station
Not required
Diagram: distance of three followers to their place in formation over 40 seconds. All come within the 0.75 m tolerance, deviate on a formation change command and return to it.01234010203040 stolerance 0.75 mcommand: new formationDistance to place in formation, m
Fig. 1. Diagram. Reaching the place in formation, holding it, changing formation.

02

Detection

A neural network finds aerial and ground targets in thermal video and tracks them from frame to frame. Day and night, on the aircraft, with no video link to the ground.

Channel
Thermal
Band
8–14 µm
Targets
Aerial, ground
Detection rate
28 per second
Four frames of one clip at one scale: the target closes in and the network holds it in a box with confidence from 0.87 to 0.99.drone 0.87T+0.7 sdrone 0.99T+2.8 sdrone 0.97T+3.7 sdrone 0.99T+4.4 s
Fig. 2. Network output on open thermal video, frames redrawn as isotherms.

03

Visual odometry

The aircraft’s position is estimated from camera frames. It works when GNSS is jammed or spoofed.

Sensor
Camera
GNSS
Not required
Emissions
None
Radio jamming
No effect
Diagram of visual odometry: camera footprints along a route over an invented map.frame
Fig. 3. Diagram. Consecutive camera frames along a route. The terrain is invented.

Testing

  1. A

    Simulation

    Random starts, delays, lost aircraft.

  2. B

    Bench

    Every unit is calibrated on its own. Error is measured.

  3. C

    Field

    Real aircraft. Flight records go back into the simulation.

The swarm on the first screen is built from the coordinates of a simulation episode. Detection is the network’s output on open video, redrawn as lines. Figs. 1 and 3 are diagrams. Other specifications are discussed in person.