Performance Analysis of UAV Control Architectures Over Urban Environments with Degraded GNSS Accessibility

Unmanned Aerial vehicles are currently becoming a widely used technology that provides support to a set of different applications. However, specific levels of confidence and robustness in the performance of these devices are required for the safe integration of these technologies within the National Airspace. This paper describes efforts towards the development of flight control architectures based using precision and way-point control strategies for autonomous operations. Moreover, a performance analysis of the integration of the specified control architectures over UAV vehicles being operated within urban canyons is presented based on simulations results obtained by using a virtual environment built in Gazebo. The simulation environment uses a built GNSS model with typical signal degradation sources for GNSS accessibility such as muti-path, signal obstruction and shadowing, evaluated within the virtual world. Results are presented in terms the Cross track errors, probabilities of collisions within the defined mission parameters as well as GPS metrics as it is the Dilution of Precision (DOP), along its distribution within the 3D map, in order to correlate the impact of GNSS degradation into each control strategy and therefore, the navigation performance and operation safety.