Vehicles equipped with systems to identify foreign objects or debris on runways, discontinuities or cracks in pavement

Abstract

The present invention describes an aircraft, unmanned aerial system (UAS) or drone type vehicle 1 equipped with a system for the detection of foreign objects or debris (FOD) 7, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement on a runway 3, the system comprising a wideband FM radar 5 having a center frequency above 20 GHz designed to acquire images of the runway 3 in order to identify such foreign objects or debris 7, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement present on the surface, and to provide at least one high-resolution image 9 of the surface of the runway 3 by synthetic aperture radar (SAR) processing techniques of the images, the vehicle 1 being provided to move along the runway 3.

Description

[Technical Field]

[0001] The present invention relates to an aircraft, Unmanned Aerial System ("UAS") or drone-type vehicle equipped with an on-board system for identifying objects on runways, in particular airport runways or car / motorcycle racing runways. The objects may be foreign objects or debris ("FOD"), discontinuities in the pavement, cracks. [Background technology]

[0002] Detecting foreign objects or debris (FOD) on runways, especially on airport runways, as well as discontinuities or cracks in pavements, has proven to be a significant challenge (especially after the Concorde crash in July 2000).

[0003] Currently, however, no effective techniques exist for reliable, accurate, and substantially real-time identification of such foreign objects or debris other than visual inspection, which, however, can be very slow when performed by a human operator.

[0004] Indeed, solutions using cameras or LIDAR and expert image recognition systems require high computational costs and, at least so far, have not produced particularly satisfactory results.

[0005] Solutions that utilize the capabilities of synthetic aperture radars designed to view the surface of airport runways from grazing angles are also known. However, these solutions involve the use of fixed installations (so-called GBSAR (Ground-Based Synthetic Aperture Radar)), which consequently can only view small portions of the runway without using numerous other installations along the runway itself, entailing a clear increase in installation and computational costs. Furthermore, these solutions present significant limitations in identifying small objects on large surfaces, such as those of airport runways, and result in visibility with non-uniform resolution and depending on the viewing distance and viewing angle itself.

[0006] Other solutions are also known which envisage the use of remotely piloted aircraft (so-called "UAS": Unmanned Aerial Systems) or drones for airport security and foreign object or debris identification, some of which are even able to produce orthoimages for airport runway inspection, but these solutions do not provide for the use of synthetic aperture radar (also known as "SAR": Synthetic Aperture Radar) and therefore still do not achieve satisfactory performance.

[0007] Known prior art systems are described in documents CN-A-109 188 437, CN-A-113 447 926, CN-A-111 538 002, CN-A-113 406 639, and John Spriggs: "Runway Safety: Technologies for Debris Detection", IIR Conference on Runway Safety, October 25, 2001, XP002230491. [Prior art documents] [Patent documents]

[0008] [Patent Document 1] CN-A-109 188 437 [Patent Document 2] CN-A-113 447 926 [Patent Document 3] CN-A-111 538 002 [Patent Document 4] CN-A-113 406 639 [Non-patent literature]

[0009] [Non-Patent Document 1] John Spriggs: "Runway Safety: Technologies for Debris Detection," IIR Conference on Runway Safety, October 25, 2001, XP002230491 Summary of the Invention [Problem to be solved by the invention]

[0010] It is therefore an object of the present invention to solve the problems of the prior art mentioned above by providing an aircraft, UAS or drone type vehicle equipped with an on-board system for identifying foreign objects or debris, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement on a runway, such vehicle utilizing synthetic aperture radar ("SAR") processing techniques for the acquisition of images of such runways, allowing for better and more reliable performance compared to that proposed by known techniques. [Means for solving the problem]

[0011] These and other objects and advantages of the present invention, as will become apparent from the following description, are achieved by means of a vehicle such as that set out in claim 1.

[0012] Preferred embodiments and non-obvious modifications of the invention form the subject matter of the dependent claims.

[0013] It is understood that all appended claims form an integral part of this specification.

[0014] It will be immediately apparent that countless variations and modifications can be made to that which is described (e.g., with regard to shape, size, arrangement, and parts having equivalent functions) without departing from the scope of the invention, as apparent from the appended claims.

[0015] The invention will be better explained by some preferred embodiments thereof, given as non-limiting examples, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: [Brief explanation of the drawings]

[0016] [Figure 1] 1 is a front view of a preferred embodiment of a vehicle according to the present invention; [Figure 2] 1 is a schematic diagram of the operating principle of a vehicle and of a system according to the invention; [Figure 3a] 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of the use of a vehicle and system according to the present invention; [Figure 3b] 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of the use of a vehicle and system according to the present invention; [Figure 3c] 1 is a schematic diagram of an example of the use of a vehicle and system according to the present invention; [Figure 4] 1 is a diagram relating to testing in the field of use of a vehicle and of a system according to the invention; [Figure 5] 1 is a diagram relating to testing in the field of use of a vehicle and of a system according to the invention; DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0017] For the sake of brevity, descriptions of parts and components common to other systems and vehicles of known technology and necessary for their basic operation, which in any case are considered to be widely known to those skilled in the art, will be expressly omitted hereinafter, and the description will focus on aspects and components that characterize the systems and vehicles according to the present invention.

[0018] Thus, with reference to the figures, there is shown a preferred embodiment of an aircraft, unmanned aerial system (UAS) or drone type vehicle 1 equipped with a system according to the invention for identifying foreign objects or debris (FOD) 7, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement on a runway 3, in particular an airport runway or a car / motorcycle racing runway.

[0019] The system comprises at least one wideband Frequency Modulated (FM) radar with a centre frequency above 20 GHz, designed to acquire images of the runway 3 and provide at least one high resolution image 9 of the surface of the runway 3 (i.e., an image having a longest side of at least 1920 pixels and a density of at least 300 pixels per inch (ppi) (1 inch = 25.4 mm)) by synthetic aperture radar ("SAR") processing techniques of such images in order to identify the location of foreign objects or debris 7 present on the surface, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement.

[0020] It is assumed that the vehicle 1 of the present invention equipped with the above-described system moves along a runway 3 .

[0021] Advantageously, this vehicle 1 can be autonomous, semi-autonomous, remotely or human-driven, without any particular distinction.

[0022] Similarly, the vehicle 1 may be equipped with its own autonomous propulsion means (eg, a land engine with relative tractive power, one or more aircraft engines 6, etc.).

[0023] Preferably, the above indicated frequency is substantially equal to 77 GHz.

[0024] Preferably, the vehicle 1 moves at a substantially low altitude (less than 5 meters above the ground) and at a grazing angle of view substantially parallel to the runway 3, along a lateral trajectory XX, to enable the FM radar 5 to acquire one or more images of the surface of the runway 3 itself.

[0025] With particular reference to Figure 2, it is therefore possible to create a synthetic aperture by means of the FM radar 5 and "SAR" processing techniques to sense the movement of the vehicle 1 along the XX direction transverse to the runway 3 in order to obtain an image 9 of the surface area of ​​the runway 3 being investigated, which image 9 may preferably also be obtained by non-coherent summation with previous images obtained by the FM radar 5 in order to correct for any inaccurate trajectory of the vehicle 1 along the runway 3.

[0026] The vehicle 1 may further comprise means 8 for processing and feeding AI (Artificial Intelligence) applications and devices, for example of the kind based on the NVIDIA® Jetson NANO™ platform.

[0027] In particular, Figures 3a, 3b and 3c show a schematic airport runway 3, along which a vehicle 1 moves laterally at low altitude to obtain an image 9 of the surface of the runway 3 itself, where the debris 7 is located, a plan view of the runway 3 (Figure 3b), and an image 9 of the same runway 3 obtained by "SAR" processing techniques with identification and evidence of the debris 7 (Figure 3c).

[0028] Figures 4 and 5 also show results obtained during a field test session of a vehicle 1 according to the invention on a straight runway 3, where discontinuities or cracks were positioned as targets (two cars and various corner reflectors) representing foreign objects or debris (FOD) in the pavement to be identified; these figures therefore show a surface image 9 of the runway 3 obtained from the vehicle 1 using a system according to the invention, throughout the movement of the vehicle 1 along the runway 3 in the manner indicated above, in a related diagram where the left vertical axis y and the horizontal axis x represent the longitudinal and lateral distances of the runway 3, while the right vertical axis A represents amplitude measurements, and where two cars 13a and 13b, as well as targets such as a reflector 15, are shown.

[0029] The installation of a radar mounted on a vehicle as indicated above therefore has the great advantage over that proposed by the prior art of being able to scan the entire length of the runway 3 while maintaining a uniform resolution of the images 9 obtained by SAR processing.

[0030] The vehicle according to the invention also makes it possible to obtain the following technical advantages over those proposed by the prior art: The use of a wideband FM radar 5 with a center frequency above 20 GHz allows a good signal / noise ratio even from small debris or discontinuous surfaces (up to about 1 mm). The movement of the vehicle 1 along the runway 3 at a grazing angle of view makes it possible to avoid reflections from the ground and thus have signals only from small discontinuities in the surface, the grazing angle also allowing maximum resolution in the line of sight of the FM radar 5. - The use of "SAR" processing techniques makes it possible to obtain a very high resolution, theoretically of a few millimeters, by taking advantage of the movement of the vehicle 1 perpendicular to the line of sight of the runway 3. - It is also possible to envisage the use of "SAR" processing techniques, with correction for the non-perfectly straight trajectory of vehicle 1. - It is also possible to envisage the use of a two-stage SAR processing technique (coherent and non-coherent summation), which is particularly robust against correction errors for non-perfectly linear orbits, without using autofocusing techniques, which are computationally very difficult. - Radar images9 can be acquired from both sides of the runway3, processed on the same grid, allowing the identification of foreign objects or debris (FOD)7, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement that may be barely visible on one side alone.

Claims

1. An aircraft, unmanned aerial system (UAS) or drone-type vehicle (1) is equipped with a system for identifying foreign objects or debris (FOD) (7), discontinuities or cracks in the pavement on a runway (3), the system acquiring images of the runway (3) to identify the location of the foreign objects or debris (FOD) present on the surface, discontinuities or cracks in the pavement, and using synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to image the images. a vehicle (1) intended to travel along said runway (3), said vehicle (1) comprising at least one wideband Frequency Modulated (FM) radar (5) having a center frequency above 20 GHz, said radar (5) being designed to provide at least one high-resolution image (9) of said surface of said runway (3), i.e., an image having a longest side of at least 1920 pixels and a density of at least 300 pixels per inch (ppi) (1 inch = 25.4 mm), by processing techniques using a wideband Frequency Modulated (FM) radar (5);

2. 2. A vehicle (1) according to claim 1, characterized in that the vehicle (1) is autonomous, semi-autonomous, remotely or human-driven.

3. A vehicle (1) according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said vehicle (1) is equipped with its own autonomous propulsion means (6).

4. A vehicle (1) according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that said frequency is substantially equal to 77 GHz.

5. 5. The vehicle (1) according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the vehicle (1) moves at a substantially low altitude, i.e. at a height of 5 m or less, and along a lateral trajectory and at a grazing viewing angle substantially parallel to the runway (3), in order to enable the FM radar (5) to acquire one or more images of the surface of the runway (3) in an orthogonal direction.

6. A vehicle (1) according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that the vehicle (1) comprises means (8) for processing and feeding AI (Artificial Intelligence) applications and devices.

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