Design and development of an ultrasonic navigation system

In 2009, the ITURRI Group began an ambitious R&D project. The goal was to have in-house technology which enables unmanned vehicles to be operated remotely. The idea behind it is to avoid putting human lives at risk when it is necessary to drive a vehicle into an area in which the safety of its occupants is not guaranteed. There are multiple potential uses and applications: from operations in which there are NBQ threats to military operations in which there are snipers; also in the extinguishing of forest fires, fires at petrochemical plants, etc. The project, called SICTEL (Tele-operated Conduction Integral System), was presented to the Centre for Industrial Technological Development (CDTI), a public entity which depends on the Ministry of Economics and Competitivity and promotes technological innovation and development of Spanish companies. It was welcomed with such interest that it has been financed by the Technology Fund, a special tranche of ERDF funding from the European Union dedicated to the promotion of business R&D in Spain. As part of that project, we have been proposed to design and develop an obstacle avoidance system for unmanned vehicles using four ultrasonic sensors.