Autonomous flying robots

• Main Author: Teo, Benjamin Haw Heng.
• Other Authors: Wijerupage Sardha Wijesoma
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Control and instrumentation::Robotics
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/16789
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Unmanned aerial vehicles UAV(s) are an area of interest for surveillance applications. UAV(s) have the potential to provide fast and cheap aerial data that would be difficult to obtain by conventional means. UAV(s) have the ability to navigate without being hampered by ground terrain, making them more advantageous over land based autonomous vehicles. Achieving autonomy especially in small-scale aircrafts continue to be a challenging task. A basic design for an autonomous helicopter based on the DraganFly Innovations DraganFlyer V Ti RC is explored. The main aim of this project is to control the flying quadrotor with computer or joystick. The report covers information on building the quadrotor from scratch and programming the Arduino microcontroller. The use of computer vision and sensors in sustaining flight and orientation with respect to an object of interest will be discussed in this report. This report will also cover information on tracking an object for instance, a moving red car while maintaining its flight stability based solely on color. This ensures that the capabilities of the platform will be extensive enough to support future research on autonomous flight. The project was created using an agile approach to software engineering and was developed from the ground up, focusing on the different components of the overall system, that being physical engineering as well as software development and integration. The report will present information on controlling the DraganFlyer V Ti RC by joystick control and computer control and computer vision. It will also include information on building a low cost flying quadrocopter which integrates gyros, accelerometers and a GPS for attitude control compatible with a 2.4GHz RC controller like the Spektrum DX7. Lastly, to make this an autonomous UAV, that can fly to program waypoints without pilot intervention.