ESO member featured in Institute of Navigation (ION) webinar
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PhD candidate, Aman Sharma, of EPFL's Environmental Sensing Observatory (ESO) shared novel insights into aerodynamics and model-based navigation for small, fixed-wing drones in a featured webinar hosted by the Institute of Navigation (ION).
Established in 1945, the Institute of Navigation (ION) stands as a leading non-profit professional society dedicated to advancing the fields of positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). Serving a broad community, ION caters to groups with interests in air, space, marine, and land navigation, as well as position determination.
In the webinar, Mr. Sharma presented the limitations of fusing satellite positioning with inertial sensors for navigation of small drones during GPS-signal disruption, and introduced model-based navigation as a plausible solution. He further unveiled an algorithm to identify the unknown aerodynamic model parameters without relying on costly and time-consuming wind tunnel experiments, emphasizing the algorithm's advantages to facilitate the practical and cost-effective implementation of model-based systems on small, fixed-wing drones. Mr. Sharma's talk concluded with a presentation of the results obtained on real-flights, complemented by informative videos and illustrations. Don't miss the chance to watch and learn more.
This webinar showcases ESO's commitment to cutting-edge research to advance our understanding of navigation.
This project received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 754354 and was partially supported by the Swiss National Foundation (200021182072).
Sharma, A., Laupré, G.F. and Skaloud, J., 2023. Identifying aerodynamics of small fixed-wing drones using inertial measurements for model-based navigation. NAVIGATION: Journal of the Institute of Navigation, 70(4).