Surveillance UAV Example

Surveillance UAV example
Battlefield surveillance UAVs such as the Altair Predator B variant (Figure 2) are good
examples of where packaged PMC-based FPGAs like the TS-MPEG-4 could be used for video
capture and compression. This class of UAV usually flies at low to medium altitude over a
battlefield or other area of particular interest and carries a number of video and, possibly,
high-resolution single-shot cameras for a more detailed view of individual objects. The UAV
will be controlled from a ground station that receives images from various cameras and are
then displayed for analysis by the ground crew. The images may then also be relayed further
up the command chain to build a complete tactical picture of the battlefield. The downlink
from the UAV to the ground does not have the bandwidth to transmit all the video streams
directly from the cameras in real time, driving the need for compression.
The mission computer for such a UAV is likely to be implemented using COTS VMEbus or
CompactPCI modules. Because of the limited space, weight, and power budgets available in a
UAV, 3U CompactPCI would again be an ideal format choice for the mission computer.
FPGA-based PMC modules for video compression could be mounted on a host SBC or could
occupy 3U slots using carrier cards. Video streams direct from the cameras in RS-170 format
would be converted to MPEG-4 by the FPGAs, then encapsulated and downlinked by the
mission computer for any of the ground-based operations required.
The FPGA with its unique and flexible architecture looks set to replace many of today's
dedicated DSP solutions where its parallelism and aggregate throughput make possible big
reductions in real estate and cost. Equally, the cost of time-to-deployment is becoming a
critical factor for both the government and system integrator, and FPGA-based solutions
often provide benefits as well. The availability of bundled, application-oriented COTS
solutions, even though they may require minor customization for a particular end-use,
promise to bring new FPGA-based DSP systems online faster and at lower cost