The success stories of High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS) from the previous test flights have led to a serial production of the platform, ready to be deployed as a flexible alternative to satellites with fixed orbits. With the current flight endurance record of almost 26 days, the platform is suitable for long-term missions, which are to monitor ground activities continuously from the stratosphere. The challenges HAPS have to face are numerous, mainly due to the dynamic environment and the time-dependent mission requirements that the light-weight platform with energy-efficient electro-motors can hardly cope with. For the deployment to be commercially viable (i.e. reducing manpower in operation, increasing mission success rate etc.) and for safety purposes, increasing the degree of automation is essential. This is applicable for the mission planning aspect as well. This work proposes an automated mission planner, of which the goal is to advice the HAPS operator to make fast and right decisions during planning prior to mission execution, working thus towards a “single-operator, multiple-HAPS” setup. Some insights of the platform and the ongoing development of airspace regulations for stratospheric unmanned aircraft are first provided. Deriving from the trend, a realistic mission scenario is conceived, in which HAPS are commanded to monitor ground activities at different areas. Time-varying environment (i.e. weather, airspace availability etc.) and time-dependent mission requirements are realistically stated as well. Given the complexity of the mission planning problem, it is dealt with module-wise. The most insidious problem in the estimation (during planning) of the spatial and temporal states of the HAPS is foremost tackled using a flight path planner, which can solve a kinodynamic path planning problem in a vector field. A hierarchical task planner guided by a genetic algorithm is integrated as a high-level planner to decompose the problem into smaller ones that the flight path planner can solve. To avoid frequent need for a replanning, a plan repair via reactive avoidance can be triggered in the presence of unforeseen but scarce obstacles. The planning methods are implemented; the functionalities and feasibility are validated using a six degree-of-freedom HAPS simulator and real historical weather data.    «

The success stories of High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellites (HAPS) from the previous test flights have led to a serial production of the platform, ready to be deployed as a flexible alternative to satellites with fixed orbits. With the current flight endurance record of almost 26 days, the platform is suitable for long-term missions, which are to monitor ground activities continuously from the stratosphere. The challenges HAPS have to face are numerous, mainly due to the dynamic environment and the t...    »