The cutting-edge research of Dr. Xu Jin’s field of cooperative control algorithms aims to improve drone security and intercept rogue UAVs
by DRONELIFE Staff Writer Ian J. McNabb
A University of Kentucky professor recently received a prestigious research award from the NSF for innovative work to improve drone safety. Xu Jin, Ph.D., Assistant Professor at Institute of Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering in Great Britain Stanley and Karen Pigman College of Engineering, received a prestigious award National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development Award (CAREER). The NSF grant will support Jin with $542,714 over five years for his research involving cooperative learning-based control algorithms for multi-agent target drone capture and management systems.
Catching a drone requires a drone
With concerns over the unauthorized use of drones near sensitive locations such as airports rising, Jin’s innovative approach uses multiple drones with nets to intercept targeted rogue UAVs.
“We want to use multiple unmanned aerial vehicles, which we call UAVs, to jointly and autonomously remove the drone from the sky using an interception net carried by these unmanned aerial vehicles,” Jin said. “We mainly have two major technical difficulties. One of them is, of course, security concerns. We want to intercept the drone, which means we need to fly close to the target drone. But we don’t want to collide with the drone. We want to ensure safety.”
Being able to accurately predict target behavior is another technical hurdle, and that means learning the drone’s movement patterns.
“The target does not want to be captured. We have to learn the target behavior and also learn the environmental factors,” Jin said. “All of these things have to take into account what we call ‘deep neural network learning’ that mimics the behavior of the human brain.
“I hope that at the end of five years we will have achieved several things. We hope to bring low-cost, widely available technology to fulfill the mission of capturing drones for the civilian market. To achieve this, we will develop learning-based cooperative control algorithms for this kind of multi-agent collaboration.”
National Science Foundation Award
The CAREER Award is one of “the most prestigious awards to support the early career development activities of those faculty and academics who most effectively integrate research and education within the context of their organization’s mission,” according to the NSF.
Jin said, “This prize will also raise the profile of our research, so we hope to attract more contributions and collaborations from all over the country so that different people with similar interests can work together.”
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Miriam McNabb is the editor-in-chief of DRONELIFE and CEO of JobForDrones, a marketplace for professional drone services, and a fascinated observer of the emerging drone industry and drone regulatory landscape. Miriam has written over 3,000 articles focused on the commercial drone space and is an international speaker and respected industry figure. Miriam has a degree from the University of Chicago and over 20 years of experience in new technology sales and marketing.
For drone consulting or writing, email Miriam.
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