Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems in Civil Applications

Interest in drones has been exponentially growing in the last ten years and these machines are often presented as the optimal solution in a huge number of civil applications (monitoring, agriculture, emergency management etc). However the promises still do not match the data coming from the consumer market, suggesting that the only big field in which the use of small unmanned aerial vehicles is actually profitable is the video-makers’ one. This may be explained partly with the strong limits imposed by existing (and often "obsolete") national regulations, but also - and pheraps mainly - with the lack of real autonomy. The vast majority of vehicles on the market nowadays are infact autonomous only in the sense that they are able to follow a pre-determined list of latitude-longitude-altitude coordinates. The aim of this thesis is to demonstrate that complete autonomy for UAVs can be achieved only with a performing control, reliable and flexible planning platforms and strong perception capabilities; these topics are introduced and discussed by presenting the results of the main research activities performed by the candidate in the last three years which have resulted in 1) the design, integration and control of a test bed for validating and benchmarking visual-based algorithm for space applications; 2) the implementation of a cloud-based platform for multi-agent mission planning; 3) the on-board use of a multi-sensor fusion framework based on an Extended Kalman Filter architecture

Aerial Robotics for Inspection and Maintenance

Aerial robots with perception, navigation, and manipulation capabilities are extending the range of applications of drones, allowing the integration of different sensor devices and robotic manipulators to perform inspection and maintenance operations on infrastructures such as power lines, bridges, viaducts, or walls, involving typically physical interactions on flight. New research and technological challenges arise from applications demanding the benefits of aerial robots, particularly in outdoor environments. This book collects eleven papers from different research groups from Spain, Croatia, Italy, Japan, the USA, the Netherlands, and Denmark, focused on the design, development, and experimental validation of methods and technologies for inspection and maintenance using aerial robots

UAV or Drones for Remote Sensing Applications in GPS/GNSS Enabled and GPS/GNSS Denied Environments

The design of novel UAV systems and the use of UAV platforms integrated with robotic sensing and imaging techniques, as well as the development of processing workflows and the capacity of ultra-high temporal and spatial resolution data, have enabled a rapid uptake of UAVs and drones across several industries and application domains.This book provides a forum for high-quality peer-reviewed papers that broaden awareness and understanding of single- and multiple-UAV developments for remote sensing applications, and associated developments in sensor technology, data processing and communications, and UAV system design and sensing capabilities in GPS-enabled and, more broadly, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS)-enabled and GPS/GNSS-denied environments.Contributions include:UAV-based photogrammetry, laser scanning, multispectral imaging, hyperspectral imaging, and thermal imaging;UAV sensor applications; spatial ecology; pest detection; reef; forestry; volcanology; precision agriculture wildlife species tracking; search and rescue; target tracking; atmosphere monitoring; chemical, biological, and natural disaster phenomena; fire prevention, flood prevention; volcanic monitoring; pollution monitoring; microclimates; and land use;Wildlife and target detection and recognition from UAV imagery using deep learning and machine learning techniques;UAV-based change detection