A method to interpret fracture aperture of rock slope using adaptive shape and unmanned aerial vehicle multi-angle nap-of-the-object photogrammetry

The aperture of natural rock fractures significantly affects the deformation and strength properties of rock masses,as well as the hydrodynamic properties of fractured rock masses.The conventional measurement methods are inadequate for collecting data on high-steep rock slopes in complex mountainous regions.This study establishes a high-resolution three-dimensional model of a rock slope using unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)multi-angle nap-of-the-object photogrammetry to obtain edge feature points of fractures.Fracture opening morphology is characterized using coordinate projection and transformation.Fracture central axis is determined using vertical measuring lines,allowing for the interpretation of aperture of adaptive fracture shape.The feasibility and reliability of the new method are verified at a construction site of a railway in southeast Tibet,China.The study shows that the fracture aperture has a significant interval effect and size effect.The optimal sampling length for fractures is approximately 0.5e1 m,and the optimal aperture interpretation results can be achieved when the measuring line spacing is 1%of the sampling length.Tensile fractures in the study area generally have larger apertures than shear fractures,and their tendency to increase with slope height is also greater than that of shear fractures.The aperture of tensile fractures is generally positively correlated with their trace length,while the correlation between the aperture of shear fractures and their trace length appears to be weak.Fractures of different orientations exhibit certain differences in their distribution of aperture,but generally follow the forms of normal,log-normal,and gamma distributions.This study provides essential data support for rock and slope stability evaluation,which is of significant practical importance.

Spectral purification improves monitoring accuracy of the comprehensive growth evaluation index for film-mulched winter wheat

In order to further improve the utility of unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)remote-sensing for quickly and accurately monitoring the growth of winter wheat under film mulching, this study examined the treatments of ridge mulching,ridge–furrow full mulching, and flat cropping full mulching in winter wheat.Based on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE) method, four agronomic parameters (leaf area index, above-ground biomass, plant height, and leaf chlorophyll content) were used to calculate the comprehensive growth evaluation index (CGEI) of the winter wheat, and 14 visible and near-infrared spectral indices were calculated using spectral purification technology to process the remote-sensing image data of winter wheat obtained by multispectral UAV.Four machine learning algorithms, partial least squares, support vector machines, random forests, and artificial neural network networks(ANN), were used to build the winter wheat growth monitoring model under film mulching, and accuracy evaluation and mapping of the spatial and temporal distribution of winter wheat growth status were carried out.The results showed that the CGEI of winter wheat under film mulching constructed using the FCE method could objectively and comprehensively evaluate the crop growth status.The accuracy of remote-sensing inversion of the CGEI based on the ANN model was higher than for the individual agronomic parameters, with a coefficient of determination of 0.75,a root mean square error of 8.40, and a mean absolute value error of 6.53.Spectral purification could eliminate the interference of background effects caused by mulching and soil, effectively improving the accuracy of the remotesensing inversion of winter wheat under film mulching, with the best inversion effect achieved on the ridge–furrow full mulching area after spectral purification.The results of this study provide a theoretical reference for the use of UAV remote-sensing to monitor the growth status of winter wheat with film mulching.

Cooperative UAV search strategy based on DMPC-AACO algorithm in restricted communication scenarios

Improvement of integrated battlefield situational awareness in complex environments involving dynamic factors such as restricted communications and electromagnetic interference(EMI)has become a contentious research problem.In certain mission environments,due to the impact of many interference sources on real-time communication or mission requirements such as the need to implement communication regulations,the mission stages are represented as a dynamic combination of several communication-available and communication-unavailable stages.Furthermore,the data interaction between unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)can only be performed in specific communication-available stages.Traditional cooperative search algorithms cannot handle such situations well.To solve this problem,this study constructed a distributed model predictive control(DMPC)architecture for a collaborative control of UAVs and used the Voronoi diagram generation method to re-plan the search areas of all UAVs in real time to avoid repetition of search areas and UAV collisions while improving the search efficiency and safety factor.An attention mechanism ant-colony optimization(AACO)algorithm is proposed for UAV search-control decision planning.The search strategy is adaptively updated by introducing an attention mechanism for regular instruction information,a priori information,and emergent information of the mission to satisfy different search expectations to the maximum extent.Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves better search performance than traditional algorithms in restricted communication constraint scenarios.

IRS Assisted UAV Communications against Proactive Eavesdropping in Mobile Edge Computing Networks

In this paper,we consider mobile edge computing(MEC)networks against proactive eavesdropping.To maximize the transmission rate,IRS assisted UAV communications are applied.We take the joint design of the trajectory of UAV,the transmitting beamforming of users,and the phase shift matrix of IRS.The original problem is strong non-convex and difficult to solve.We first propose two basic modes of the proactive eavesdropper,and obtain the closed-form solution for the boundary conditions of the two modes.Then we transform the original problem into an equivalent one and propose an alternating optimization(AO)based method to obtain a local optimal solution.The convergence of the algorithm is illustrated by numerical results.Further,we propose a zero forcing(ZF)based method as sub-optimal solution,and the simulation section shows that the proposed two schemes could obtain better performance compared with traditional schemes.

A Survey on Sensor-and Communication-Based Issues of Autonomous UAVs

The application field for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology and its adoption rate have been increasingsteadily in the past years. Decreasing cost of commercial drones has enabled their use at a scale broader thanever before. However, increasing the complexity of UAVs and decreasing the cost, both contribute to a lack ofimplemented securitymeasures and raise new security and safety concerns. For instance, the issue of implausible ortampered UAV sensor measurements is barely addressed in the current research literature and thus, requires moreattention from the research community. The goal of this survey is to extensively review state-of-the-art literatureregarding common sensor- and communication-based vulnerabilities, existing threats, and active or passive cyberattacksagainst UAVs, as well as shed light on the research gaps in the literature. In this work, we describe theUnmanned Aerial System (UAS) architecture to point out the origination sources for security and safety issues.Weevaluate the coverage and completeness of each related research work in a comprehensive comparison table as wellas classify the threats, vulnerabilities and cyber-attacks into sensor-based and communication-based categories.Additionally, for each individual cyber-attack, we describe existing countermeasures or detectionmechanisms andprovide a list of requirements to ensureUAV’s security and safety.We also address the problem of implausible sensormeasurements and introduce the idea of a plausibility check for sensor data. By doing so, we discover additionalmeasures to improve security and safety and report on a research niche that is not well represented in the currentresearch literature.

Energy-efficient joint UAV secure communication and 3D trajectory optimization assisted by reconfigurable intelligent surfaces in the presence of eavesdroppers

We consider a scenario where an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV),a typical unmanned aerial system(UAS),transmits confidential data to a moving ground target in the presence of multiple eavesdroppers.Multiple friendly reconfigurable intelligent surfaces(RISs) help to secure the UAV-target communication and improve the energy efficiency of the UAV.We formulate an optimization problem to minimize the energy consumption of the UAV,subject to the mobility constraint of the UAV and that the achievable secrecy rate at the target is over a given threshold.We present an online planning method following the framework of model predictive control(MPC) to jointly optimize the motion of the UAV and the configurations of the RISs.The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated via computer simulations.

Resilience-driven cooperative reconfiguration strategy for unmanned weapon system-of-systems

As the unmanned weap system-of systems(UWSoS)becomes complex,the inevitable uncertain interference gradu-ally increases,which leads to a strong emphasis on the resilience of UWSoS.Hence,this paper presents a resilience-driven cooperative reconfiguration strategy to enhance the resilience of UWSoS.First,a unified resilience-driven coopera-tive reconfiguration strategy framework is designed to guide the UWSoS resilience enhancement.Subsequently,a cooperative reconfiguration strategy algorithm is proposed to identify the optimal cooperative reconfiguration sequence,combining the cooperative pair resilience contribution index(CPRCI)and coop-erative pair importance index(CPII).At last,the effectiveness and superiority of the proposed algorithm are demonstrated through various attack scenario simulations that include differ-ent attack modes and intensities.The analysis results can pro-vide a reference for decision-makers to manage UWSoS.

Unmanned Ship Identification Based on Improved YOLOv8s Algorithm

Aiming at defects such as low contrast in infrared ship images,uneven distribution of ship size,and lack of texture details,which will lead to unmanned ship leakage misdetection and slow detection,this paper proposes an infrared ship detection model based on the improved YOLOv8 algorithm(R_YOLO).The algorithm incorporates the Efficient Multi-Scale Attention mechanism(EMA),the efficient Reparameterized Generalized-feature extraction module(CSPStage),the small target detection header,the Repulsion Loss function,and the context aggregation block(CABlock),which are designed to improve the model’s ability to detect targets at multiple scales and the speed of model inference.The algorithm is validated in detail on two vessel datasets.The comprehensive experimental results demonstrate that,in the infrared dataset,the YOLOv8s algorithm exhibits improvements in various performance metrics.Specifically,compared to the baseline algorithm,there is a 3.1%increase in mean average precision at a threshold of 0.5(mAP(0.5)),a 5.4%increase in recall rate,and a 2.2%increase in mAP(0.5:0.95).Simultaneously,while less than 5 times parameters,the mAP(0.5)and frames per second(FPS)exhibit an increase of 1.7%and more than 3 times,respectively,compared to the CAA_YOLO algorithm.Finally,the evaluation indexes on the visible light data set have shown an average improvement of 4.5%.

Distributed Matching Theory-Based Task Re-Allocating for Heterogeneous Multi-UAV Edge Computing

Many efforts have been devoted to efficient task scheduling in Multi-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)edge computing.However,the heterogeneity of UAV computation resource,and the task re-allocating between UAVs have not been fully considered yet.Moreover,most existing works neglect the fact that a task can only be executed on the UAV equipped with its desired service function(SF).In this backdrop,this paper formulates the task scheduling problem as a multi-objective task scheduling problem,which aims at maximizing the task execution success ratio while minimizing the average weighted sum of all tasks’completion time and energy consumption.Optimizing three coupled goals in a realtime manner with the dynamic arrival of tasks hinders us from adopting existing methods,like machine learning-based solutions that require a long training time and tremendous pre-knowledge about the task arrival process,or heuristic-based ones that usually incur a long decision-making time.To tackle this problem in a distributed manner,we establish a matching theory framework,in which three conflicting goals are treated as the preferences of tasks,SFs and UAVs.Then,a Distributed Matching Theory-based Re-allocating(DiMaToRe)algorithm is put forward.We formally proved that a stable matching can be achieved by our proposal.Extensive simulation results show that Di Ma To Re algorithm outperforms benchmark algorithms under diverse parameter settings and has good robustness.

Estimating Key Phenological Dates of Multiple Rice Accessions Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicle-Based Plant Height Dynamics for Breeding

Efficient and high-quality estimation of key phenological dates in rice is of great significance in breeding work. Plant height(PH) dynamics are valuable for estimating phenological dates. However, research on estimating the key phenological dates of multiple rice accessions based on PH dynamics has been limited. In 2022, field traits were collected using unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)-based images across 435 plots, including 364 rice varieties. PH, dates of initial heading(IH) and full heading(FH), and panicle initiation(PI), and growth period after transplanting(GPAT) were collected during the rice growth stage. PHs were extracted using a digital surface model(DSM) and fitted using Fourier and logistic models. Machine learning algorithms, including multiple linear regression, random forest(RF), support vector regression, least absolute shrinkage and selection operator, and elastic net regression, were employed to estimate phenological dates. Results indicated that the optimal percentile of the DSM for extracting rice PH was the 95th(R^(2) = 0.934, RMSE = 0.056 m). The Fourier model provided a better fit for PH dynamics compared with the logistic models. Additionally, curve features(CF) and GPAT were significantly associated with PI, IH, and FH. The combination of CF and GPAT outperformed the use of CF alone, with RF demonstrating the best performance among the algorithms. Specifically, the combination of CF extracted from the logistic models, GPAT, and RF yielded the best performance for estimating PI(R^(2) = 0.834, RMSE = 4.344 d), IH(R^(2) = 0.877, RMSE = 2.721 d), and FH(R^(2) = 0.883, RMSE = 2.694 d). Overall, UAV-based rice PH dynamics combined with machine learning effectively estimated the key phenological dates of multiple rice accessions, providing a novel approach for investigating key phenological dates in breeding work.

Optimal Positioning Strategy for Multi-Camera Zooming Drones

In the context of multiple-target tracking and surveillance applications,this paper investigates the challenge of determining the optimal positioning of a single autonomous aerial vehicle or agent equipped with multiple independently-steerable zooming cameras to effectively monitor a set of targets of interest.Each camera is dedicated to tracking a specific target or cluster of targets.The key innovation of this study,in comparison to existing approaches,lies in incorporating the zooming factor for the onboard cameras into the optimization problem.This enhancement offers greater flexibility during mission execution by allowing the autonomous agent to adjust the focal lengths of the onboard cameras,in exchange for varying real-world distances to the corresponding targets,thereby providing additional degrees of freedom to the optimization problem.The proposed optimization framework aims to strike a balance among various factors,including distance to the targets,verticality of viewpoints,and the required focal length for each camera.The primary focus of this paper is to establish the theoretical groundwork for addressing the non-convex nature of the optimization problem arising from these considerations.To this end,we develop an original convex approximation strategy.The paper also includes simulations of diverse scenarios,featuring varying numbers of onboard tracking cameras and target motion profiles,to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Beamforming Design for IRS-and-UAV-Aided Two-Way Amplify-and-Forward Relay Networks in Maritime IoT

In this paper,an intelligent reflecting surface(IRS)-and-unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)-assisted two-way amplify-and-forward(AF)relay network in maritime Internet of Things(IoT)is proposed,where ship1(S1)and ship2(S2)can be viewed as data collecting centers.To enhance the message exchange rate between S1 and S2,a problem of maximizing minimum rate is cast,where the variables,namely AF relay beamforming matrix and IRS phase shifts of two time slots,need to be optimized.To achieve a maximum rate,a low-complexity alternately iterative(AI)scheme based on zero forcing and successive convex approximation(LC-ZF-SCA)algorithm is presented.To obtain a significant rate enhancement,a high-performance AI method based on one step,semidefinite programming and penalty SCA(ONSSDP-PSCA)is proposed.Simulation results show that by the proposed LC-ZF-SCA and ONS-SDP-PSCA methods,the rate of the IRS-and-UAV-assisted AF relay network surpass those of with random phase and only AF relay networks.Moreover,ONS-SDP-PSCA perform better than LC-ZF-SCA in aspect of rate.

无人飞行器在不确定扰动下的动态目标跟踪

This study proposes an image-based visual servoing(IBVS)method based on a velocity observer for an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)for tracking a dynamic target in Global Positioning System(GPS)-denied environments.The proposed method derives the simplified and decoupled image dynamics of underactuated UAVs using a constructed virtual camera and then considers the uncertainties caused by the unpredictable rotations and velocities of the dynamic target.A novel image depth model that extends the IBVS method to track a rotating target with arbitrary orientations is proposed.The depth model ensures image feature accuracy and image trajectory smoothness in rotating target tracking.The relative velocities of the UAV and the dynamic target are estimated using the proposed velocity observer.Thanks to the velocity observer,translational velocity measurements are not required,and the control chatter caused by noise-containing measurements is mitigated.An integral-based filter is proposed to compensate for unpredictable environmental disturbances in order to improve the antidisturbance ability.The stability of the velocity observer and IBVS controller is analyzed using the Lyapunov method.Comparative simulations and multistage experiments are conducted to illustrate the tracking stability,anti-disturbance ability,and tracking robustness of the proposed method with a dynamic rotating target.

Automatic area estimation of algal blooms in water bodies from UAV images using texture analysis

Algal blooms,the spread of algae on the surface of water bodies,have adverse effects not only on aquatic ecosystems but also on human life.The adverse effects of harmful algal blooms(HABs)necessitate a convenient solution for detection and monitoring.Unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)have recently emerged as a tool for algal bloom detection,efficiently providing on-demand images at high spatiotemporal resolutions.This study developed an image processing method for algal bloom area estimation from the aerial images(obtained from the internet)captured using UAVs.As a remote sensing method of HAB detection,analysis,and monitoring,a combination of histogram and texture analyses was used to efficiently estimate the area of HABs.Statistical features like entropy(using the Kullback-Leibler method)were emphasized with the aid of a gray-level co-occurrence matrix.The results showed that the orthogonal images demonstrated fewer errors,and the morphological filter best detected algal blooms in real time,with a precision of 80%.This study provided efficient image processing approaches using on-board UAVs for HAB monitoring.

Joint position optimization,user association,and resource allocation for load balancing in UAV-assisted wireless networks

Unbalanced traffic distribution in cellular networks results in congestion and degrades spectrum efficiency.To tackle this problem,we propose an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV)-assisted wireless network in which the UAV acts as an aerial relay to divert some traffic from the overloaded cell to its adjacent underloaded cell.To fully exploit its potential,we jointly optimize the UAV position,user association,spectrum allocation,and power allocation to maximize the sum-log-rate of all users in two adjacent cells.To tackle the complicated joint optimization problem,we first design a genetic-based algorithm to optimize the UAV position.Then,we simplify the problem by theoretical analysis and devise a low-complexity algorithm according to the branch-and-bound method,so as to obtain the optimal user association and spectrum allocation schemes.We further propose an iterative power allocation algorithm based on the sequential convex approximation theory.The simulation results indicate that the proposed UAV-assisted wireless network is superior to the terrestrial network in both utility and throughput,and the proposed algorithms can substantially improve the network performance in comparison with the other schemes.

Heat transfer and temperature evolution in underground mininginduced overburden fracture and ground fissures: Optimal time window of UAV infrared monitoring

Heat transfer and temperature evolution in overburden fracture and ground fissures are one of the essential topics for the identification of ground fissures via unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) infrared imager. In this study, discrete element software UDEC was employed to investigate the overburden fracture field under different mining conditions. Multiphysics software COMSOL were employed to investigate heat transfer and temperature evolution of overburden fracture and ground fissures under the influence of mining condition, fissure depth, fissure width, and month alternation. The UAV infrared field measurements also provided a calibration for numerical simulation. The results showed that for ground fissures connected to underground goaf(Fissure Ⅰ), the temperature difference increased with larger mining height and shallow buried depth. In addition, Fissure Ⅰ located in the boundary of the goaf have a greater temperature difference and is easier to be identified than fissures located above the mining goaf. For ground fissures having no connection to underground goaf(Fissure Ⅱ), the heat transfer is affected by the internal resistance of the overlying strata fracture when the depth of Fissure Ⅱ is greater than10 m, the temperature of Fissure Ⅱ gradually equals to the ground temperature as the fissures’ depth increases, and the fissures are difficult to be identified. The identification effect is most obvious for fissures larger than 16 cm under the same depth. In spring and summer, UAV infrared identification of mining fissures should be carried out during nighttime. This study provides the basis for the optimal time and season for the UAV infrared identification of different types of mining ground fissures.

Optimal confrontation position selecting games model and its application to one-on-one air combat

In the air combat process,confrontation position is the critical factor to determine the confrontation situation,attack effect and escape probability of UAVs.Therefore,selecting the optimal confrontation position becomes the primary goal of maneuver decision-making.By taking the position as the UAV’s maneuver strategy,this paper constructs the optimal confrontation position selecting games(OCPSGs)model.In the OCPSGs model,the payoff function of each UAV is defined by the difference between the comprehensive advantages of both sides,and the strategy space of each UAV at every step is defined by its accessible space determined by the maneuverability.Then we design the limit approximation of mixed strategy Nash equilibrium(LAMSNQ)algorithm,which provides a method to determine the optimal probability distribution of positions in the strategy space.In the simulation phase,we assume the motions on three directions are independent and the strategy space is a cuboid to simplify the model.Several simulations are performed to verify the feasibility,effectiveness and stability of the algorithm.

Flight Time Minimization of UAV for Cooperative Data Collection in Probabilistic LoS Channel

This paper investigates the data collection in an unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)-aided Internet of Things(IoT) network, where a UAV is dispatched to collect data from ground sensors in a practical and accurate probabilistic line-of-sight(LoS) channel. Especially, access points(APs) are introduced to collect data from some sensors in the unlicensed band to improve data collection efficiency. We formulate a mixed-integer non-convex optimization problem to minimize the UAV flight time by jointly designing the UAV 3D trajectory and sensors’ scheduling, while ensuring the required amount of data can be collected under the limited UAV energy. To solve this nonconvex problem, we recast the objective problem into a tractable form. Then, the problem is further divided into several sub-problems to solve iteratively, and the successive convex approximation(SCA) scheme is applied to solve each non-convex subproblem. Finally,the bisection search is adopted to speed up the searching for the minimum UAV flight time. Simulation results verify that the UAV flight time can be shortened by the proposed method effectively.

Optimization of Center of Gravity Position and Anti-Wave Plate Angle of Amphibious Unmanned Vehicle Based on Orthogonal Experimental Method

When the amphibious vehicle navigates in water,the angle of the anti-wave plate and the position of the center of gravity greatly influence the navigation characteristics.In the relevant research on reducing the navigation resistance of amphibious vehicles by adjusting the angle of the anti-wave plate,there is a lack of scientific selection of parameters and reasonable research of simulation results by using mathematical methods,and the influence of the center of gravity position on navigation characteristics is not considered at the same time.To study the influence of the combinations of the angle of the anti-wave plate and the position of the center of gravity on the resistance reduction characteristics,a numerical calculation model of the amphibious unmanned vehicle was established by using the theory of computational fluid dynamics,and the experimental data verified the correctness of the numerical model.Based on this numerical model,the navigation characteristics of the amphibious unmanned vehicle were studied when the center of gravity was located at different positions,and the orthogonal experimental design method was used to optimize the parameters of the angle of the anti-wave plate and the position of the center of gravity.The results show that through the parameter optimization analysis based on the orthogonal experimental method,the combination of the optimal angle of the anti-wave plate and the position of the center of gravity is obtained.And the numerical simulation result of resistance is consistent with the predicted optimal solution.Compared with the maximum navigational resistance,the parameter optimization reduces the navigational resistance of the amphibious unmanned vehicle by 24%.

Estimation and verification of green tide biomass based on UAV remote sensing

Since 2007,the Yellow Sea green tide has broken out every summer,causing great harm to the environment and society.Although satellite remote sensing(RS)has been used in biomass research,there are several shortcomings,such as mixed pixels,atmospheric interference,and difficult field validation.The biomass of green tide has been lacking a high-precision estimation method.In this study,high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV)RS was used to quantitatively map the biomass of green tides.By utilizing experimental data from previous studies,a robust relationship was established to link biomass to the red-green-blue floating algae index(RGB-FAI).Then,the lab-based model for green tide biomass from visible images taken by the UAV camera was developed and validated by field measurements.Re sults show that the accurate and cost-effective method is able to estimate the green tide biomass and its changes in given local waters of the near and far seas.The study provided an effective complement to the traditional satellite RS,as well as high-precision quantitative techniques for decision-making in disaster management.