Abu Dhabi to develop drone testing facility

New indoor unit will help explore, innovate Unmanned Aerial System technology

The Technology Innovation Institute (TII) in Abu Dhabi is set to develop a Motion Capture facility that will enable the testing of Unmanned Aerial Systems and drones in an augmented reality or mixed-reality environment.

The facility will allow the TII’s Secure Systems Research Centre (SSRC) to simulate flying through the city of Abu Dhabi, enabling sophisticated experiments and virtual, augmented and mixed reality testing.

The ability to simulate virtual camera images and sensors will allow testing in environments that are too large, too dangerous or too time-consuming to construct in reality.

Collaboration

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 United Statesbased Purdue University that holds the distinction for the largest indoor motion capture facility in the world.

Dr Shreekant Thakkar, chief researcher at SSRC, said: “This unique testing facility will be leveraged by various lab groups and will allow us to conduct experiments on a broad range of Unmanned Aerial Systems …, while the state-of-the-art high-resolution cameras will be able to track small objects in the surrounding environment”.

The testing facility will be used to carry out experiments on a range of vehicles. To provide for a useful motion capture space, the system must be capable of allowing for mechanical isolation, climate control and simultaneous shared use.