ESA funds autonomous drone navigation system

Ampyx Power intends to fly its Airborne Wind Energy Systems at high-wind altitudes above 200m to turn winches on the ground that will generate electricity.

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Working with partner Omnisense, a Cambridgeshire-based developer of locating and tracking solutions, the positioning solution will be used for automated take-off and landing of Ampyx Power’s wind energy aircraft when applied offshore or over rugged terrain.

According to Ampyx Power, the aircraft launch and landing deck is smaller than the wingspan of the aircraft. High accuracy, availability, and integrity of the relative positioning between aircraft and platform is required during the final horizontal approach. This is to ensure safe landing in the case of GNSS outage.

The funding from ESA’s Navigation Innovation and Support Programme will cover the integration of Omnisense’s local positioning system into the navigation solution that will harness ultra-wideband positioning techniques. This is expected to provide 10cm of relative positioning accuracy with 100Hz update rate and an operating range up to 1km.