UAV: Medusa
Description
|
Medusa |
| Monitoring Equipment and Devices for Unmanned Systems at high Altitude |
| Contact |
Bavo Delauré |
Start (End) Date |
01/01/2006
(30/09/2011) |
| Consortium |
8 partners |
Project Coordination |
VITO |
| Website |
medusa.vgt.vito.be (new window) |
Related Projects |
Pegasus, Osiris,
APEX, RIMS, Puerto
Rico |
| Keywords |
instrument development, system performance modelling,
high resolution imaging |
Project Objectives
The ESA-PRODEX funded MEDUSA project aims to develop a light weight high resolution multi-spectral earth observation instrument, which will be embarked on a solar-powered HALE UAV. MEDUSA is part of the Pegasus program, set up by VITO to demonstrate the feasibility of remote sensing from a HALE UAV.
Methodology
As prime contractor VITO of ESA/PRODEX drives the development of the instrument during the complete cycle from mission definition, requirements identification, design to assembly, integration and test phase. This is realized through the project management and the performance modeling of the instrument.
By means of various simulation tools the top-level performance of the instrument is modeled by VITO. The different analyses combine the performance of each of the subsystems which are simulated and characterized by the different subcontractors. This way the instrument specifications can be monitored through out the complete development cycle and take into account system. The modeling tool is also used support technical trade-offs at subsystem and system level.
VITO is hosting the MEDUSA Central Data Processing Center, thereby providing the necessary processing nodes and storage capacity. An archiving workflow has been developed to receive both the image data and metadata from the Ground Control Station, archive this data in HDF5 files, and register the archive files in a database. During the archiving process “quicklooks” are created to allow visual image browsing. The archiving process is done in near real-time.
The image metadata includes payload position (GPS) and orientation (IMU) data.
(Expected) Results
MEDUSA high resolution camera system and corresponding archiving workflow.
VITO Contribution
- Project management
- System performance modelling
- System engineering
- Archiving facility development
Partners
- Cypress Semiconductors Belgium (Belgium)
- Inertial Science (USA)
- Lambda-X (Belgium)
- Orban Microwave Products (Belgium)
- Septentrio (Belgium)
- Thales Alenia Space Antwerp (Belgium)
- Vector International (Belgium)
- Verhaert Space (Belgium)
Illustration
The MEDUSA camera system
Contact:
Bavo Delauré
Tel. + 32 14 33 68 29
Fax + 32 14 32 27 95
Send a message to Bavo Delauré
Back
