Editorial

Citation

Isikveren, A.T. (2011), "Editorial", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 83 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2011.12783faa.001

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology: An International Journal, Volume 83, Issue 6

Greetings to you, colleagues. It is my pleasure to announce that once again this year a special issue, Vol. 83, No. 6, of Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology (AEAT) journal is dedicated to publication of a select number of articles developed from Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Intelligent Unmanned Systems (ICIUS), which took place 3-5 November 2010, in Bali, Indonesia. The objective of ICIUS is to provide an international forum for researchers and engineers in order to present and discuss the state-of-the-art and emerging trends in intelligent unmanned systems. Main topic areas include: unmanned systems (aerial, terrestrial and underwater); robotics and biomimetics (actuators and sensors); control and computation: and intelligent systems. A unique feature of ICIUS is the preponderance of representatives from all corners of the Asian continent together with those from the Western hemisphere and Australasia.

In this special issue, eight high-quality papers related to execution of operational flight programs, control, obstacle and collision avoidance, tracking, and design of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been accepted for publication:

1. 1.

   Kodirov, N., Kim, D.-H., Kim, J., Song, S., Moon, C., “Performance enhancement of real-time computing for small unmanned helicopter autopilot”.

2. 2.

   Kim, J., Budiyono, A., Kim, D.-M., Song, H.-G., Kim, D.-H., “A TMO-based flight program of an unmanned helicopter”.

3. 3.

   Tijani, I.B., Akmeliawati, R., Legowo, A., Budiyono, A., Abdul Muthalif, A.G.A., “H_∞ robust controller for autonomous helicopter hovering control”.

4. 4.

   Joelianto, E., Sumarjono, E., Budiyono, A., Penggalih, D.R., “Model predictive control for autonomous unmanned helicopters”.

5. 5.

   Manathara, J.G., Ghose, D., “Reactive collision avoidance of multiple realistic UAVs”.

6. 6.

   Lee, J.-O., Lee, K.-H., Park, S.-H., Im, S.-G., Park, J., “Obstacle avoidance for small UAVs using monocular vision”.

7. 7.

   Trilaksono, B.R., Triadhitama, R., Adiprawita, W., Wibowo, A., Sreenatha, A., “Hardware-in-the-loop simulation for visual target tracking of octorotor UAV”.

8. 8.

   Vu, N.A., Lee, Y.-J., Lee, J.-W., Kim, S., Chung, I.J., “Configuration design and optimisation study of a compound gyroplane”.

With regards to execution of operational flight programs, authors Kodirov, Kim, Kim, Song and Moon offer scope for improvements through implementation of thread scheduling and lock-free thread message communication mechanisms to the real-time operating system kernel. Authors Kim, Budiyono, Kim and Song propose the possibility of incorporating so-called danger-awareness, i.e. adherence to safe altitudes and avoidance of high ambient temperature locales, to the UAV auto-navigation function using a time-triggered message-triggered object model. Both articles focus on unmanned rotary-wing UAVs.

In order to facilitate smooth hovering operations for rotary-wing UAVs, authors Tijani, Akmeliawati, Legowo, Budiyono and Muthalif use extended H_∞ loop shaping design techniques for the synthesis of a robust controller. The feasibility of controlling a rotary-wing UAV using five linear models covering flight from hover to high-speed cruise using model predictive control techniques is presented by authors Joelianto, Sumarjono, Budiyono and Penggalih.

Turning our attention to collision and obstacle avoidance, a means of handling collision avoidance in a high-density traffic environment to detect and resolve conflicts in projected paths is offered by authors Manathara and Ghose. A combination of multi-scale-oriented patches and a scale-invariant feature transform algorithm was employed by authors Lee, Lee, Park, Im and Park in order to establish three-dimensional information of obstacles obtained from a monocular camera setup.

Authors Trilaksono, Triadhitama, Adiprawita, Wibowo and Sreenatha demonstrate how hardware-in-the-loop simulation of UAVs could happen by integrating real-embedded computer vision hardware with software dedicated to modeling of dynamics, flight control and navigation. Benefits include risk amelioration during UAV flight testing and reduced development costs.

The final article for this special issue is the conceptual design and optimization of a compound gyroplane. Apart from interesting features that constitute the design concept, originality of this work also involved creation of a special purpose conceptual sizing software suited for compound air vehicles.

Expressions of gratitude are conveyed to the authors and co-authors of 6th ICIUS for their valuable contributions, in particular Dr Agus Budiyono of Konkuk University for his help in contacting the ICIUS authors. A special word of thanks is expressed to Professor Riti Singh of Cranfield University, who incidentally serves as our Academic Editor, for first proposing the idea of having special issues of AEAT journal devoted to UAVs.

May I suggest to all future authors of the AEAT journal who work with or perform research related to UAVs consider attending ICIUS conferences: the next of which will take place between 31 October and 2 November 2011, in Chiba, Japan. The journal is pleased to announce that we will be publishing papers from this conference in 2012 and we hope to continue this collaboration with the organizers of forthcoming ICIUS events.

In closing, on behalf of the Editorial Advisory Board and Editorial Team, it is our express wish you find Vol. 83, No. 6 interesting reading.

Askin T. Isikveren