Vision and UWB-Based Collaborative Positioning Between Ground and UAS Platforms

The rapid development of autonomous ground vehicle technologies (AV) and the recent proliferation of unmanned aerial system (UAS) applications motivate the search for appropriate solutions ensuring safe and effective navigation of such autonomous platforms in any operational environment and condition, including situations where air and ground platforms share the same space. Because of the easy availability and efficiency of GNSS (Global Navigation satellite System) for civilian use, GNSS positioning has been widely used in a large variety of consumer applications, in particular in mobile devices and, in fact, it has become an enabling technology for many applications, allowing positioning and navigation of ground and aerial platforms almost everywhere. Since reliable GNSS signal reception cannot be guaranteed in urban and vegetated areas as well as when signals are subject to unintentional and intentional interferences, the provision of alternate and complementary positioning solutions has been of high interest for a long while. One of the applicable techniques is the use of collaborative navigation (CN), where platforms navigating in close vicinity can share navigation information and a joint navigation solution can potentially provide better individual navigation solutions for all platforms. In this work we investigate the feasibility and performance of CN in areas where ground and airborne vehicles operate in the same space. A field test, including multiple ground vehicles and drones was conducted to acquire experimental data to assess accuracy, robustness and accuracy of CN in a simulated intersection area. Initial results of this research work are reported.