Development of UAV teleoperation virtual environment based-on GSM networks and real weather effects

Abstract

Future Ground Control Stations (GCSs) for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) teleoperation targets better situational awareness by providing extra motion cues to stimulate the vestibular system. This paper proposes a new virtual environment for long range Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) control via Non-Line-of-Sight (NLoS) communications, which is based on motion platforms. It generates motion cues for the teleoperator for extra sensory stimulation to enhance the guidance performance. The proposed environment employs the distributed component simulation over GSM network as a simulation platform. GSM communications are utilized as a multi-hop communication network, which is similar to global satellite communications. It considers a UAV mathematical model and wind turbulence effects to simulate a realistic UAV dynamics. Moreover, the proposed virtual environment simulates a Multiple Axis Rotating Device (MARD) as Human Machine Interface (HMI) device to provide a complete delay analysis. The demonstrated measurements cover Graphical User Interface (GUI) capabilities, NLoS GSM communications delay, MARD performance, and different software workload. The proposed virtual environment succeeded to provide visual and vestibular feedbacks for teleoperators via GSM networks. The overall system performance is acceptable relative to other Line-of-Sight (LoS) systems, which promises a good potential for future long range, medium altitude UAV teleoperation researches.