Download or read book Autonomous Navigation and Tracking of Dynamic Surface Targets On board a Computationally Impoverished Aerial Vehicle written by William Clayton Selby and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis describes the development of an independent, on-board visual servoing system which allows a computationally impoverished aerial vehicle to autonomously identify and track a dynamic surface target. Image segmentation and target tracking algorithms are developed for the specific task of monitoring whales at sea. The computer vision algorithms' estimates prove to be accurate enough for quadrotor stabilization while being computationally fast enough to be processed on-board the platform. This differs from current techniques which require off-board processing of images for vehicle localization and control. The vision algorithm is evaluated on video footage to validate its performance and robustness. The quadrotor is then modeled to motivate and guide the development of Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) controllers for maneuvering the quadrotor. The controllers are tuned using a motion capture system which provides ground truth state measurements. The vision system is integrated into the control scheme to allow the quadrotor to track an iCreate. Additionally, an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) fuses the vision system position estimates with attitude and acceleration measurements from an on-board Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to allow the quadrotor to track a moving target without external localization.

Download or read book Autonomous Navigation and Deployment of UAVs for Communication Surveillance and Delivery written by Hailong Huang and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2022-09-09 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autonomous Navigation and Deployment of UAVs for Communication, Surveillance and Delivery Authoritative resource offering coverage of communication, surveillance, and delivery problems for teams of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) Autonomous Navigation and Deployment of UAVs for Communication, Surveillance and Delivery studies various elements of deployment of networks of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) base stations for providing communication to ground users in disaster areas, covering problems like ground traffic monitoring, surveillance of environmental disaster areas (e.g. brush fires), using UAVs in rescue missions, converting UAV video surveillance, and more. The work combines practical problems, implementable and computationally efficient algorithms to solve these problems, and mathematically rigorous proofs of each algorithm’s convergence and performance. One such example provided by the authors is a novel biologically inspired motion camouflage algorithm to covert video surveillance of moving targets by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). All autonomous navigation and deployment algorithms developed in the book are computationally efficient, easily implementable in engineering practice, and based only on limited information on other UAVs of each and the environment. Sample topics discussed in the work include: Deployment of UAV base stations for communication, especially with regards to maximizing coverage and minimizing interference Deployment of UAVs for surveillance of ground areas and targets, including surveillance of both flat and uneven areas Navigation of UAVs for surveillance of moving areas and targets, including disaster areas and ground traffic monitoring Autonomous UAV navigation for covert video surveillance, offering extensive coverage of optimization-based navigation Integration of UAVs and public transportation vehicles for parcel delivery, covering both one-way and round trips Professionals in navigation and deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles, along with researchers, engineers, scientists in intersecting fields, can use Autonomous Navigation and Deployment of UAVs for Communication, Surveillance and Delivery to gain general knowledge on the subject along with practical, precise, and proven algorithms that can be deployed in a myriad of practical situations.

Download or read book Robust Tracking of Dynamic Targets with Aerial Vehicles Using Quaternion based Techniques written by Hernán Abaunza Gonzalez and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The objective of this thesis work is to design control and navigation algorithms for tracking of dynamic ground targets using aerial vehicles. Quaternions, which provide an alternative to the classical representations of aerial vehicle dynamics, have been chosen as a basement to develop robust controllers and agile navigation algorithm, due to their advantages such as the absence of singularities and discontinuities and their mathematical simplicity when handling rotations. The quaternion-based control approaches explored in this thesis range from state feedback, passivity, and energy-based controllers, up to sliding modes, and three-dimensional saturation approaches. Then, autonomous and semi-autonomous navigation strategies for quadrotors were explored. An algorithm has been developed for controlling a quadrotor using gestures from a user wearing an armband. To facilitate the operation of multirotors in adverse scenarios, an aggressive deployment strategy has been proposed where a quadrotor is launched by hand With its motors turned off. Finally, autonomous navigation techniques for tracking dynamic targets have been designed. A trajectory generation algorithm based on differential equations has been introduced to track a land vehicle while describing circles. Finally a distributed path planning algorithm has been developed for a fleet of drones to autonomously track ground targets by solving an online optimization problem.

Download or read book Intelligent Autonomy of UAVs written by Yasmina Bestaoui Sebbane and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2018-03-14 with total page 421 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Intelligent Autonomy of UAVs: Advanced Missions and Future Use provides an approach to the formulation of the fundamental task typical to any mission and provides guidelines of how this task can be solved by different generic robotic problems. As such, this book aims to provide a systems engineering approach to UAV projects, discovering the real problems that need to be resolved independently of the application. After an introduction to the rapidly evolving field of aerial robotics, the book presents topics such as autonomy, mission analysis, human-UAV teams, homogeneous and heterogeneous UAV teams, and finally, UAV-UGV teams. It then covers generic robotic problems such as orienteering and coverage. The book next introduces deployment, patrolling, and foraging, while the last part of the book tackles an important application: aerial search, tracking, and surveillance. This book is meant for both scientists and practitioners. For practitioners, it presents existing solutions that are categorized according to various missions: surveillance and reconnaissance, 3D mapping, urban monitoring, precision agriculture, forestry, disaster assessment and monitoring, security, industrial plant inspection, etc. For scientists, it provides an overview of generic robotic problems such as coverage and orienteering; deployment, patrolling and foraging; search, tracking, and surveillance. The design and analysis of algorithms raise a unique combination of questions from many fields, including robotics, operational research, control theory, and computer science.

Download or read book Autonomous Robust Control Techniques for Dynamic Target Tracking written by Guillermo Julio Cesar Betancourt Vera and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thesis will approach the problem of tracking moving targets by means of an aerial drone. More precisely, a quadrotor configuration was taken into consideration for the development of aerial navigation algorithms, since this kind of platformis mechanically simple, versatile for performing aggressive maneuvers, and easily available for experimentation. The goal of this thesis is to develop control and navigation algorithms capable of robustly tracking dynamic targets. The contributions here in reported aimat presenting a unified and accessible analysis of control strategies for solving the stabilization and tracking problems. Inaddition, this thesis introduces autonomous and semi-autonomous navigation algorithms fortracking static and dynamic targets. Finally, for giving robustness with respect to a class of perturbations, a robust control architecture based on disturbance observer has been developed.

Download or read book Autonomous Visual Tracking of Stationary Targets Using Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles written by Robert A. Prince and published by . This book was released on 2004-06 with total page 91 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Real Time Navigation and Flight Path Generation for Tracking Stop and Go Targets with Miniature Air Vehicles written by and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 115 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This research effort focuses on using a heuristic approach to determine the optimal flight path required to put an Unmanned Aircraft System's (UAS) sensor on a moving target in the presence of a constant wind field. This thesis builds on past work using dynamic optimization techniques to calculate minimum time to target. The computationally intensive dynamic optimization routines in their current form take a prohibitive amount of time to calculate and ultimately result in erroneous flight path predictions due to inherent execution time latencies. Therefore an iterative, suboptimal heuristic approach was explored to mitigate excessive calculation times and ultimately yield improved flight path predictions. This report not only explores the heuristic techniques used for flight path calculation, but also includes real world application and flight test results in a Micro Air Vehicle equipped with an autopilot.

Download or read book On Autonomous Target Tracking for UAVs written by Panagiotis Theodorakopoulos and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Most applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles are related to events that occur on the ground. In particular, ground target tracking, be the target static, slowly moving or maneuvering at high speeds, is an essential task for UAVs. The overall objective of this thesis is to provide methods to endow a drone to autonomously track a moving ground target, under the following conditions: - A fixed wing UAV equipped with a monocular camera. - Presence of obstacles that hinder ground visibility. - No Fly Zones that limit the airspace. - Restrictions on the field of view of the observing sensor (a camera) - Various target dynamics and behavior: the target may be either moving on an open field or on a road network, and also has dynamic constraints (e.g. if it is a car). It can be neutral or evasive: in the latter case, it can exploit the presence of obstacles, denoted as "shadows" to avoid being tracked by the UAV, making the problem akin to a "hide and seek" game. The thesis proposes three approaches to tackle this problem: - A control based navigation method, - An adversarial predictive method, - And a discrete game theoretic approach. Results obtained in realistic simulations and with an actual UAV are presented to evaluate and compare the pros and cons of each approach. Extensions to the multi-drone case are also considered.

Download or read book Tracking of Ground Mobile Targets by Quandrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles written by Ruoyu Tan and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An Unmanned Air Vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft without a human pilot on board. It can be controlled either autonomously by computers onboard, or using a remote control by a pilot on the ground, or in another vehicle. In both military and civilian sectors, UAVs are quickly obtaining popularity and expected to expand dramatically in the years to come. As UAVs gain more attention, one of the immediate requirements would be to have UAVs work as much autonomously as possible. One of the common tasks that UAVs would be engaged in is target tracking which has various potential applications in military field, law-enforcement, wildlife protection effort, and so on. This thesis focuses on development of a controller for UAVs to track ground target. In particular, this thesis focuses on quadrotor UAV, which is a multicopter that is lifted and propelled using four motors. Admittedly, several target tracking control methods have been developed in recent years. However, only a few of them have been applied on a quadrotor. Most of these tracking methods, particularly those based on Proportional Derivative (PD) control laws, which have been applied on quadrotors, are not time efficient due to practical acceleration constraint and a number of parameters that need to be tuned. The UAV control problem can be divided into 4 sub-problems: Position Control, Motor Control, Trajectory Tracking and Trajectory Generation. In this thesis, the dynamic equations of motion for quadrotors and a Proportional Derivative control law is derived to solve the problems of Position Control, Motor Control and Trajectory Tracking. A Proportional Navigation (PN) based switching strategy is proposed to address the problem of Trajectory Generation. The experiments and numerical simulations are performed using non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets. The simulation results show that the proposed PN based switching strategy not only carries out effective tracking but also results into smaller oscillations and errors when compared to the widely used PD tracking method. The switching strategy, as proposed as a solution to target tracking problem, leaves an important question with regard to when should the switching happen. It is intuitive that the time of switching will play a role in how fast the UAV converges to the target. The second problem considered in this thesis relates to the optimal time of switching that would minimize the positional error between the UAV and the target. An optimal switching strategy is proposed to obtain the optimal switching time for both non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets. Analytical solutions that generate trajectories based on PN and PD methods are used in this strategy. The numerical simulations validate the optimality, reliability, and accuracy of the proposed method for both non-maneuvering and maneuvering targets.

Download or read book Autonomous Navigation and Teleoperation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Using Monocular Vision written by Diego Alberto Mercado-Ravell and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The present document addresses, theoretically and experimentally, the most relevant topics for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in autonomous and semi-autonomous navigation. According with the multidisciplinary nature of the studied problems, a wide range of techniques and theories are covered in the fields of robotics, automatic control, computer science, computer vision and embedded systems, among others. As part of this thesis, two different experimental platforms were developed in order to explore and evaluate various theories and techniques of interest for autonomous navigation. The first prototype is a quadrotor specially designed for outdoor applications and was fully developed in our lab. The second testbed is composed by a non expensive commercial quadrotor kind AR. Drone, wireless connected to a ground station equipped with the Robot Operating System (ROS), and specially intended to test computer vision algorithms and automatic control strategies in an easy, fast and safe way. In addition, this work provides a study of data fusion techniques looking to enhance the UAVs pose estimation provided by commonly used sensors. Two strategies are evaluated in particular, an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and a Particle Filter (PF). Both estimators are adapted for the system under consideration, taking into account noisy measurements of the UAV position, velocity and orientation. Simulations show the performance of the developed algorithms while adding noise from real GPS (Global Positioning System) measurements. Safe and accurate navigation for either autonomous trajectory tracking or haptic teleoperation of quadrotors is presented as well. A second order Sliding Mode (2-SM) control algorithm is used to track trajectories while avoiding frontal collisions in autonomous flight. The time-scale separation of the translational and rotational dynamics allows us to design position controllers by giving desired references in the roll and pitch angles, which is suitable for quadrotors equipped with an internal attitude controller. The 2-SM control allows adding robustness to the closed-loop system. A Lyapunov based analysis probes the system stability. Vision algorithms are employed to estimate the pose of the vehicle using only a monocular SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) fused with inertial measurements. Distance to potential obstacles is detected and computed using the sparse depth map from the vision algorithm. For teleoperation tests, a haptic device is employed to feedback information to the pilot about possible collisions, by exerting opposite forces. The proposed strategies are successfully tested in real-time experiments, using a low-cost commercial quadrotor. Also, conception and development of a Micro Aerial Vehicle (MAV) able to safely interact with human users by following them autonomously, is achieved in the present work. Once a face is detected by means of a Haar cascade classifier, it is tracked applying a Kalman Filter (KF), and an estimation of the relative position with respect to the face is obtained at a high rate. A linear Proportional Derivative (PD) controller regulates the UAV's position in order to keep a constant distance to the face, employing as well the extra available information from the embedded UAV's sensors. Several experiments were carried out through different conditions, showing good performance even under disadvantageous scenarios like outdoor flight, being robust against illumination changes, wind perturbations, image noise and the presence of several faces on the same image. Finally, this thesis deals with the problem of implementing a safe and fast transportation system using an UAV kind quadrotor with a cable suspended load. The objective consists in transporting the load from one place to another, in a fast way and with minimum swing in the cable.

Download or read book written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Autonomous Vehicle Technology written by James M. Anderson and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The automotive industry appears close to substantial change engendered by “self-driving” technologies. This technology offers the possibility of significant benefits to social welfare—saving lives; reducing crashes, congestion, fuel consumption, and pollution; increasing mobility for the disabled; and ultimately improving land use. This report is intended as a guide for state and federal policymakers on the many issues that this technology raises.

Download or read book Advancing Autonomous Systems written by Bradley Martin and published by . This book was released on 2018-12 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles written by Kimon P. Valavanis and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2008-02-26 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The past decade has seen tremendous interest in the production and refinement of unmanned aerial vehicles, both fixed-wing, such as airplanes and rotary-wing, such as helicopters and vertical takeoff and landing vehicles. This book provides a diversified survey of research and development on small and miniature unmanned aerial vehicles of both fixed and rotary wing designs. From historical background to proposed new applications, this is the most comprehensive reference yet.

Download or read book Quad Rotorcraft Control written by Luis Rodolfo García Carrillo and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-08-12 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quad Rotorcraft Control develops original control methods for the navigation and hovering flight of an autonomous mini-quad-rotor robotic helicopter. These methods use an imaging system and a combination of inertial and altitude sensors to localize and guide the movement of the unmanned aerial vehicle relative to its immediate environment. The history, classification and applications of UAVs are introduced, followed by a description of modelling techniques for quad-rotors and the experimental platform itself. A control strategy for the improvement of attitude stabilization in quad-rotors is then proposed and tested in real-time experiments. The strategy, based on the use low-cost components and with experimentally-established robustness, avoids drift in the UAV’s angular position by the addition of an internal control loop to each electronic speed controller ensuring that, during hovering flight, all four motors turn at almost the same speed. The quad-rotor’s Euler angles being very close to the origin, other sensors like GPS or image-sensing equipment can be incorporated to perform autonomous positioning or trajectory-tracking tasks. Two vision-based strategies, each designed to deal with a specific kind of mission, are introduced and separately tested. The first stabilizes the quad-rotor over a landing pad on the ground; it extracts the 3-dimensional position using homography estimation and derives translational velocity by optical flow calculation. The second combines colour-extraction and line-detection algorithms to control the quad-rotor’s 3-dimensional position and achieves forward velocity regulation during a road-following task. In order to estimate the translational-dynamical characteristics of the quad-rotor (relative position and translational velocity) as they evolve within a building or other unstructured, GPS-deprived environment, imaging, inertial and altitude sensors are combined in a state observer. The text give the reader a current view of the problems encountered in UAV control, specifically those relating to quad-rotor flying machines and it will interest researchers and graduate students working in that field. The vision-based control strategies presented help the reader to a better understanding of how an imaging system can be used to obtain the information required for performance of the hovering and navigation tasks ubiquitous in rotored UAV operation.

Download or read book 2018 IEEE CSAA Guidance Navigation and Control Conference CGNCC written by IEEE Staff and published by . This book was released on 2018-08-10 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Topics of interests are in the broad areas of GNC, including but not limited to Control Theory and Analysis Intelligent Computing, Communication and Control New Methods of Navigation, Estimation and Tracking Navigation, Guidance and Control of Aircraft Navigation, Guidance and Control of Other Moving Objects Control of Multiple Moving Objects Man and Autonomous Unmanned Systems Guidance, Navigation and Control of Miniature Aircraft Sensor Systems for Guidance, Navigation and Control Advanced Design Simulation Software

Download or read book Unmanned Vehicle Systems Operations on Air Sea Land written by Randall Nichols and published by . This book was released on 2020-10-02 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Unmanned Vehicle Systems & Operations On Air, Sea, Land is our fourth textbook in a series covering the world of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems (CUAS). (Nichols R. K., 2018) (Nichols R. K., et al., 2019) (Nichols R. , et al., 2020)The authors have expanded their purview beyond UAS / CUAS systems. Our title shows our concern for growth and unique cyber security unmanned vehicle technology and operations for unmanned vehicles in all theaters: Air, Sea and Land - especially maritime cybersecurity and China proliferation issues. Topics include: Information Advances, Remote ID, and Extreme Persistence ISR; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles & How They Can Augment Mesonet Weather Tower Data Collection; Tour de Drones for the Discerning Palate; Underwater Autonomous Navigation & other UUV Advances; Autonomous Maritime Asymmetric Systems; UUV Integrated Autonomous Missions & Drone Management; Principles of Naval Architecture Applied to UUV's; Unmanned Logistics Operating Safely and Efficiently Across Multiple Domains; Chinese Advances in Stealth UAV Penetration Path Planning in Combat Environment; UAS, the Fourth Amendment and Privacy; UV & Disinformation / Misinformation Channels; Chinese UAS Proliferation along New Silk Road Sea / Land Routes; Automaton, AI, Law, Ethics, Crossing the Machine - Human Barrier and Maritime Cybersecurity.Unmanned Vehicle Systems are an integral part of the US national critical infrastructure The authors have endeavored to bring a breadth and quality of information to the reader that is unparalleled in the unclassified sphere. Unmanned Vehicle (UV) Systems & Operations On Air, Sea, Land discusses state-of-the-art technology issues facing U.S. UV system researchers / designers / manufacturers / testers. We trust our newest look at Unmanned Vehicles in Air, Sea, and Land will enrich our students and readers understanding of the purview of this wonderful technology we call UV.