By Ron Chen, Correspondent ASEAN Region

The applied research pillar of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC), Technology Innovation Institute (TII), has announced that its Secure Systems Research Centre (SSRC) is pioneering a first-in-the-region Motion Capture (MOCAP) facility. Outside of the United States, SSRC’s unique MOCAP facility at its Masdar City premises, will enable the testing of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) or drones in an augmented reality (AR) or mixed reality environment.

The MOCAP facility will allow SSRC to simulate flying through the city of Abu Dhabi and enable high-precision ground truth to conduct sophisticated experiments as well as virtual, augmented and mixed reality testing. The ability to simulate virtual camera images and sensors facilitates testing in environments that are too large, too dangerous, or too time consuming to construct in reality.

The high-quality motion capture system proposed for Abu Dhabi will be able to conduct passive or active tracking and enhance the communication, navigation, command, and control capabilities achieved to date. SSRC is shaping this facility in line with its ongoing collaboration with US-based Purdue University that holds the distinction for the largest indoor motion capture facility in the world.

Speaking on the breakthrough facility that will allow the modelling and operation of a cloud-based secure autonomous system of drones – as opposed to just autonomous drones – in this environment, Chief Researcher, SSRC, , Dr Shreekant (Ticky) Thakkar said: “This is a start – an ambitious one – and we are confident we will be able to arrive at technologies that could limit malicious cyber-attacks as our reliance on drones continues to increase every day. They are integral to life today – from delivering valuable organs at a hospital to conducting surveillance of high-security zones, or dispersing seeds over a field or even completing grocery deliveries.

“This unique testing facility will be leveraged by various lab groups and allow us to conduct experiments on a broad range of Unmanned Aerial Systems of various sizes while the state-of-the-art high-resolution cameras track small objects in the surrounding environment. Our aim at SSRC is to develop breakthrough security solutions to safeguard systems that may be vulnerable, such as unsecure drone systems which may pose various threats to organisational or even individual privacy and safety. Therefore, it’s essential to make drone platforms more resilient and secure.”

On the construction of the new facility, Managing Director of the Purdue UAS Research and Test Facility James Goppert said: “Autonomous drones are already playing a key part in package delivery and infrastructure inspection. As smart cities evolve, it will be critical to ensure the safe operation of drones in an urban setting. This facility is particularly suited to the task of bringing algorithms for the security of drones from simulation to real world application by allowing a gradual transition of scenario elements from pure simulation, to virtual, to real-world.”

The testing facility will be used by both the Secure Systems Research Centre and TII’s Autonomous Robotics Research Centre to carry out experiments on a range of vehicles. As a shared space, the Motion Capture facility can accommodate micro UAS weighing less than 10 g to large UAS that are as heavy as 1,000 kg and factor in different types of UAS from multirotor to helicopters to vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (VTOLs) to fixed wing craft.