Sense and avoid technology in unmanned aerial vehicles: A review

The term unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) has become a quiet a bit popular over the last 10 years because of its humongous growth in both military and commercial applications. Every UAV must possess S&A capability so that it can be allowed by National Airspace System (NAS) to fly in space. This paper gives a brief overview on the recent trends and advancements in sense and avoids technology. This paper gives a brief outline about the existing challenges and threats that can encountered while operating an UAV, which is followed by the discussion on sensing mechanisms, obstacle-tracking, collision detection, and collision avoidance in sequence. Different approaches and potential solutions regarding the above-mentioned four aspects have been highlighted throughout the paper.

I. Introduction

Artificial intelligence and automation are the recent trendy technologies that are having a quite humongous scope in various fields. Aircrafts are not an exception that leads to the discovery of on board pilotless aircrafts that are termed as unmanned aerial vehicles popularly known as UAVs. As in [1] Unmanned aerial vehicle(UAVs) can be controlled either by a human in ground control station who will get information from the sensors installed in UAVs through established communication link or by the processing computers which are loaded with decision making algorithms and collision avoidance programs. UAVs are classified in to fixed wing UAVs and rotary wing UAVs based on movement of its wings. They are classified in to heavier UAVs, miniature and micro UAVs that weigh less than 25 kg and 1kg respectively.