Description: The cause of most adverse situations during unmanned aerial system operation is system, subsystem, or component faults or failure which are caused by damage, degradation, or environmental hazards that occur during flight. The Hiawatha OnBoard Electronic Sensing System can unobtrusively monitor the electronic health of the unmanned vehicle in real-time, identifying and assessing the threat of any transient high stress events which can affect the ongoing health and safety of the system to prevent system failure or unsafe conditions. The system relies on identifying changes in unintended RF emissions and characterizing them using a hybrid of spectral quantification metrics and machine learning algorithms. Leveraging mature RF hardware, Nokomis will integrate and test machine learning algorithms capable of assessing emissions changes in real time identify imminent fault states caused by normal wear or stress events which cause temporary or permanent disability of the system. The system is envisioned to operate autonomously, alerting the operator or initiating countermeasures as needed. Nokomis will enhance the prototype developed in the base period to autonomously monitor system and subsystem health to identify possible critical failures or unsafe states by assessing collected data in real time to identify need for preventative measures and communicate with ground station and operator to ensure safe operation. Phase II Extended consists of the following tasks: Enhance software modules through improvements and additional complementary modules including machine learning algorithms to assess data to identify signature and markers which indicate potential component damage or wear beyond expected use degradation Demonstrate through test and evaluation the system ability to autonomously distinguish between markers indicating normal system state, stressed state, and critical imminent failure Deliverables include the enhanced prototype system and test and evaluation report.

Benefits: The primary application is for use in by unmanned vehicles to provide a safety system to identify any threats to vehicle performance and mission. The real-time threat analysis system will enhance vehicle safety without the need for an operator to either identify issues or initiate measures to compensate for unsafe operating states. The cause of most adverse situations is system, subsystem, or component faults or failure which are caused by damage degradation, or environmental hazards that occur during flight.

The market for UAS includes commercial applications such as surveillance, visual monitoring of remote infrastructure, and package delivery in densely populated areas. These applications benefit from increased security of operations, to prevent loss of valuable equipment, ensuring the safety of people, and limiting damage to other infrastructure due to a critical failure of an aerial platform.