WIRELESS LAN FOR OPERATION OF HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGING PAYLOAD ON A HIGH ALTITUDE SOLAR-POWERED UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE

• Main Authors: Herwitz, Stanley R., Leung, Joseph G., Aoyagi, Michio, Billings, Donald B., Wei, Mei Y., Dunagan, Stephen E., Higgins, Robert G., Sullivan, Donald V., Slye, Robert E.
• Other Authors: Clark University
• Language: en_US
• Published: International Foundation for Telemetering 2003
• Subjects: Ethernet Bridges; WLAN; Line-of-Sight Telemetry; Airborne Imaging Payloads; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10150/605364; http://arizona.openrepository.com/arizona/handle/10150/605364

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 20-23, 2003 / Riviera Hotel and Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada === Two separate imaging payloads were successfully operated using a wireless line-of-sight telemetry system that was developed as part of a recently completed UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) imaging campaign over the largest coffee plantation in the USA. The objective was to demonstrate the performance of “off-the-shelf” wireless technology in an effort to reduce the cost of line-of-sight telemetry for imaging payloads on UAVs. Pre-deployment tests using a conventional twin-engine piloted aircraft at a flight height of 10k ft demonstrated successful broadband connectivity between a rapidly moving (ca. 280 km hr^(-1)) airborne WLAN (wireless local area network) and a fixed ground station WLAN. This paper details the performance of the wireless telemetry system on a slow-flying (<50 km hr^(-1)) solar-powered UAV at a flight height of 6.4 km.