Sky's the limit for pilotless planes
Queensland researchers are leading the world in developing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for a myriad of practical uses.
Bert Hinkler, the first man to fly solo from England to Australia, is not the only aviation pioneer to hail from Bundaberg. The Queensland sugar town has also produced Dr Rod Walker, project leader at QUT’s School of Engineering Systems.
He has teamed with Jonathan Roberts, Principal Research Scientist at CSIRO’s ICT Centre at Pullenvale to fast track civilian commercial applications for unmanned aerial vehicles.
Searches at sea, spotting bush fires, inspecting endless kilometres of powerlines for damage or vegetation encroachment, spraying crops or delivering emergency medical supplies to outback stations are just some of the uses envisaged for the vehicles, which can range in size from a wingspan of two metres up to a full size freight plane.
Rod said the market potential is huge with the value of the civilian UAV industry in the Asia-Pacific region alone estimated to be $2.76 billion by the year 2012.
“While the US military has been developing pilotless planes for many years and has used the 737-size Global Hawk in the Iraq war, their aircraft are remotely operated and require a team of up to 40 people on the ground to keep them flying,” he said.
“Our emphasis is on developing truly autonomous planes where most of the decision-making is made on the aircraft itself.
“Our UAVs will take off by themselves, detect unusual weather and other aircraft while flying, then land and taxi down the runway and park, all without significant human control.”
Jonathan said CSIRO’s interest in UAVs grew out of their work with robotic vehicles in the mining industry.
“Our research emphasis has been on using Robotic Vision which allows the vehicle to observe the world and then control itself on what it sees,” Jonathan said.
All the operating systems on the QUT UAV, including the hardware, data link and computer on board have been developed by QUT PhD researchers and undergraduate students.
Dr Walker, who is chairman of a steering committee for the Australian UAV Development Project (a nationwide initiative backed by the Federal Government and aerospace industry) said the project team’s initial goal was to fly a new high-tech Australian unmanned aircraft within three years.
The QUT UAV project, which originally grew out of Australia’s only Aerospace Avionics Course at QUT, confirms Queensland’s standing as the aviation hub of the Asia Pacific. More than 5000 new jobs in aviation have been created in Queensland since 1998.
Last reviewed 19 January 2006