Development of land target following system of hexacopter

This paper discussed the development of a land target following system for hexacopter using on-board camera. The camera will detect the specified land target during the flight of the hexacopter and communicate with the base station to produce the GPS location of the target for necessary actions. Besides, basic concepts and mechanism of the hexacopter was briefly discussed. A few experiments were conducted to get the performance of the methods focusing on color detection algorithms. The results of the experiments show that different approach angle and lighting of the hexacopter will result in different level of accuracy of the algorithm. The proposed object tracking system manage to successfully produce GPS coordinates of the target object with accuracy of about 89. The future works include incorporating more complex image processing algorithms to get better target detection performance and more experiments on different real life situations

Controllability Analysis and Degraded Control for a Class of Hexacopters Subject to Rotor Failures

This paper considers the controllability analysis and fault tolerant control problem for a class of hexacopters. It is shown that the considered hexacopter is uncontrollable when one rotor fails, even though the hexacopter is over-actuated and its controllability matrix is row full rank. According to this, a fault tolerant control strategy is proposed to control a degraded system, where the yaw states of the considered hexacopter are ignored. Theoretical analysis indicates that the degraded system is controllable if and only if the maximum lift of each rotor is greater than a certain value. The simulation and experiment results on a prototype hexacopter show the feasibility of our controllability analysis and degraded control strategy.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Journal of Intelligent & Robotic System

Recent Efforts Enabling Martian Rotorcraft Missions

The Mars Helicopter (MH), launching as a part of the Mars 2020 mission, will begin a new era of planetary exploration. Mars research has historically been conducted through landers, rovers, and satellites. As both government and private industries prepare for human exploration of the Martian surface within two decades, more in depth knowledge of what awaits on the surface is critical. Planetary aerial vehicles increase the range of terrain that can be examined, compared to traditional landers and rovers and have more near surface capability than orbiters. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and NASA Ames are currently exploring possibilities for a Mars Science Helicopter (MSH), a second-generation Mars rotorcraft with the capability of conducting science investigations independently of a lander or rover (although this type of vehicle could also be used assist rovers or landers in future missions). Preliminary designs of coaxial-helicopter and hexacopter configurations have targeted the minimum capability of lifting a payload in the range of two to three kilograms with an overall vehicle mass of approximately twenty kilograms. These MSH designs sizes are constrained by the aeroshell dimensions(currently focused on employing legacy Pathfinder or MSL aeroshells), rather than vehicle structural or aeroperformance limitations. Feasibility of the MSH configurations has been investigated considering packaging/deployment, rotor aerodynamics, and structural analysis studies. Initial findings suggest not only the overall feasibility of MSH configurations but also indicate that improvements up to 11.1 times increase in range or 1.3 times increase in hover time might be achievable, even with an additional science payload, compared to the current design of the MH

Mars Science Helicopter Conceptual Design

Robotic planetary aerial vehicles increase the range of terrain that can be examined, compared to traditional landers and rovers, and have more near-surface capability than orbiters. Aerial mobility is a promising possibility for planetary exploration as it reduces the challenges that difficult obstacles pose to ground vehicles. The first use of a rotorcraft for a planetary mission will be in 2021, when the Mars Helicopter technology demonstrator will be deployed from the Mars 2020 rover. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA Ames Research Center are exploring possibilities for a Mars Science Helicopter, a second-generation Mars rotorcraft with the capability of conducting science investigations independently of a lander or rover (although this type of vehicle could also be used assist rovers or landers in future missions). This report describes the conceptual design of Mars Science Helicopters. The design process began with coaxial-helicopter and hexacopter configurations, with a payload in the range of two to three kilograms and an overall vehicle mass of approximately twenty kilograms. Initial estimates of weight and performance were based on the capabilities of the Mars Helicopter. Rotorcraft designs for Mars are constrained by the dimensions of the aeroshell for the trip to the planet, requiring attention to the aircraft packaging in order to maximize the rotor dimensions and hence overall performance potential. Aerodynamic performance optimization was conducted, particularly through airfoils designed specifically for the low Reynolds number and high Mach number inherent in operation on Mars. The final designs show a substantial capability for science operations on Mars: a 31 kg hexacopter that fits within a 2.5 m diameter aeroshell could carry a 5 kg payload for 10 min of hover time or over a range of 5 km

Review Paper on Visual Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Handling Disaster Management Issue

In order to get the information of any vehicle which is travelling on the way we required to rely on Global Positioning System. The GPS provides the Global Positioning Information of vehicle, which relies on external source called satellites. But the satellite signal may get cut or have small signal strength in cluttered areas or is less reliable at low altitude areas. So I think of to use the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, not only this by attaching the Rispberry pi which is a credit size single cheap computer in order to classify the object that we want. It is a multifunctional UAV which will monitor and classify the object along with it also perform the explosive detection. It plays a great role in disaster occurred areas in order to detect the human beings or finding the objects. It also plays a role in detecting the explosive material in a cluttered area. In a flooded area in order to monitor or detect the humans it is easy for UAV to move above the surface of the ground and water. And provides the detection as well as live streaming of the particular area and images can be captured by it. It has a sensor IED in order to detect the explosive material. It can provide the full image of the object by moving around the object. It is operated by remote control. At the transmitting side you can see the live streaming and images of the area on the display. You can also able to see the detected sign indicating object with a particular object

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)-Assisted Water Sampling

Water quality assessment programs require the collection of water samples for physical, chemical, and bacteriological analysis. Lack of personnel, accessibility of water bodies, and time constraints for water sampling, especially after natural disasters and emergencies, are some of the challenges of water sampling. To overcome these challenges, a water collection mechanism was developed and mounted on a multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for autonomous water sampling from water bodies. The payload capacity and endurance of the UAV (hexacopter) were verified using an indoor test station. The hexacopter was equipped with floating foam, and the electronic components were coated against water damage in case of landing on water due to emergencies or water sampling. The system was able to collect water samples 48 times out of 73 autonomous flight missions from a pond. The unsuccessful missions were mainly due to the malfunctions of the servo motor used in water sampler’s triggering mechanism. The servo motor for the mechanism was replaced to prevent the future malfunctions. UAV-assisted autonomous water sampling is a promising method for collection of water from water bodies. The system would be useful for collection of water samples from large lakes or difficult to access water sources. The details of the developed water sampling mechanism and the multirotor UAV, and experiment results are reported in this thesis

Implementation of Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for assessment of transportation infrastructure - Phase II

Technological advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technologies continue to enable these tools to become easier to use, more economical, and applicable for transportation-related operations, maintenance, and asset management while also increasing safety and decreasing cost. This Phase 2 project continued to test and evaluate five main UAV platforms with a combination of optical, thermal, and lidar sensors to determine how to implement them into MDOT workflows. Field demonstrations were completed at bridges, a construction site, road corridors, and along highways with data being processed and analyzed using customized algorithms and tools. Additionally, a cost-benefit analysis was conducted, comparing manual and UAV-based inspection methods. The project team also gave a series of technical demonstrations and conference presentations, enabling outreach to interested audiences who gained understanding of the potential implementation of this technology and the advanced research that MDOT is moving to implementation. The outreach efforts and research activities performed under this contract demonstrated how implementing UAV technologies into MDOT workflows can provide many benefits to MDOT and the motoring public; such as advantages in improved cost-effectiveness, operational management, and timely maintenance of Michigan’s transportation infrastructure

Al-Robotics team: A cooperative multi-unmanned aerial vehicle approach for the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge

The Al-Robotics team was selected as one of the 25 finalist teams out of 143 applications received to participate in the first edition of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge (MBZIRC), held in 2017. In particular, one of the competition Challenges offered us the opportunity to develop a cooperative approach with multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) searching, picking up, and dropping static and moving objects. This paper presents the approach that our team Al-Robotics followed to address that Challenge 3 of the MBZIRC. First, we overview the overall architecture of the system, with the different modules involved. Second, we describe the procedure that we followed to design the aerial platforms, as well as all their onboard components. Then, we explain the techniques that we used to develop the software functionalities of the system. Finally, we discuss our experimental results and the lessons that we learned before and during the competition. The cooperative approach was validated with fully autonomous missions in experiments previous to the actual competition. We also analyze the results that we obtained during the competition trials.Unión Europea H2020 73166