Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Abstract.

A low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is compared with those already available and the motivation
for its development is established. It is targeted at ship-based science missions and potential
applications are described including a specific science case to measure white capping in the deep
ocean. The current vehicle includes a range of more than 1000 km, carrying a payload of 2 kg and it
can be launched and recovered from a coastal research vessel. The vehicle has flown successfully in
Force 4 gusting Force 6–7 wind conditions, an important requirement for operation at sea. Data
analysis is performed on images captured by the vehicle to provide a measurement of wave period
and white capping fraction. The next stage of the project is to develop a suitable payload and
perform a demonstration science mission.

Aim of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Project

This project aims at developing the hardware and control system, to stabilize an unmanned
aerial vehicle in air, make it hover, travel to desired destinations autonomously given GPS
waypoints as well as use artificial vision to locate and identify target buildings and open
windows, for the purpose of surveillance. The project is thus multi-disciplinary and aims to
make use of different aspects of electrical engineering, long distance communication, control
systems as well as artificial vision processing to achieve the objective

The project requires small light-weight critical sensors to sense angular velocities,
accelerations along the three coordinates and inertial systems such as magnetometers, altitude
sensors with pressure gauges and GPS system with a GPS antenna to give information about
the heading with respect to the earth's magnetic field, height and GPS coordinates. These
sensors need to be utilized to ensure that the vehicle remains balanced, aware of its position
with respect to a base station as well as its heading, attitude, and height. The subsequent
chapters describe all the aspects of the UAV like constructional details, hardware used,
control system, embedded system, PCB designing, robotic vision and some aspects which are
still under active developme

http://www.uavindia.com/home_Primary Vehicle Construction and Design

The Primary vehicle is based on the quad rotor helicopter. It is an electrically powered
vehicle and includes a deployable sub-vehicle. An electrically powered vehicle was chosen
after considering various factors such as, the hazards associated with gas-powered vehicles,
ease of maintenance, quietness of operation, and zero gas and thermal emission.
Fixed Pitch propellers are used and are fully ducted, to address safety concerns. The chassis
of the vehicle is made of carbon fiber to lend strength to the frame for withstanding minor
collisions and at the same time minimize the weight of the vehicle.

Media Articles

Times of India

The Hindu

LivingRoom (AU)

RoboticsIndia

For any queries regarding our UAV, contact, Ankur Khetrapal

ankurkhetrapal AT uavindia DOT com

Figure 1, Primary Vehicle Chassis

The Vehicle uses high efficiency motors and electronic speed controllers, all the components,
right from the electronics to the propulsion drives are powered by high density, light weight
batteries.
The Primary vehicle will establish a wireless link with a base station upto a distance of 3 kms
to send all it’s flight data back including suveilance pictures.

Vision is one of the most important senses for the UAV as it provides for path planning,
obstacle avoidance, visual tracking and target matching. Path planning and obstacle
avoidance is done by the vision module of the UAV in conjunction with other sensors like
SONAR, but for target matching (Image Recognition), the UAV is solely dependent on the
vision system. A lot of emphasis is given on the vision system since it is required to have
high robustness and reliability.

Vision is achieved by a camera, which takes in pictures and feeds them to a vision processing
software. Thus after a picture has been analyzed the vehicle can take decisions on how to
maneuver and perform further processing.

r1_c2.gifSecondary Vehicle Construction and Design

Provision is made for a small, deployable vehicle to be kept on top of the primary vehicle.
The sub-vehicle’s main purpose is indoor navigation, so is designed to be collision resistant.
Indoor navigation is achieved through use of sensors. Care was taken in making the sub –
vehicle extremely light weight.

Media Articles

Times of India

The Hindu

LivingRoom (AU)

For any queries regarding our UAV, contact, Ankur Khetrapal

ankurkhetrapal AT uavindia DOT com

 
  

Figure 1, Test Platform for Secondary Vehicle

 Vision System

Vision is one of the most important senses for the UAV as it provides for path planning,
obstacle avoidance, visual tracking and target matching. Path planning and obstacle
avoidance is done by the vision module of the UAV in conjunction with other sensors like
SONAR, but for target matching (Image Recognition), the UAV is solely dependent on the
vision system. A lot of emphasis is given on the vision system since it is required to have
high robustness and reliability.

Media Articles

Times of India

The Hindu

LivingRoom (AU)

RoboticsIndia

For any queries regarding our UAV, contact, Ankur Khetrapal

ankurkhetrapal AT uavindia DOT com
Vision is achieved by a camera, which takes in pictures and feeds them to a vision processing
software. Thus after a picture has been analyzed the vehicle can take decisions on how to
maneuver and perform further processing.

More details will be put up regarding the Vision System soon. For any specific enquiries,
contact Pranav Kedia at pranavkedia AT gmail DOT com

Communication System Design

The Communication System for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle was divided into two parts:

1. Wireless Network from Base station to the Primary UAV

2. Wireless Network from the Primary UAV to the Secondary UAV

Media Articles

Times of India

The Hindu

LivingRoom (AU)

RoboticsIndia

For any queries regarding our UAV, contact, Ankur Khetrapal

ankurkhetrapal AT uavindia DOT com

Primary Vehicle

The primary vehicle is equipped with an 802.11b Wi-Fi LAN adapter. The on-board unit
comprises a Senao Wi-Fi USB adaptor of 80mW output power with 23dbi gain and a
sensitivity of -93dbm.

Secondary Vehicle
The secondary vehicle is equipped with a camera that relays the video automatically on an
802.11b network. This video is transmitted to the promary vehicle. The primary vehicle then
processes the video and also relays it back to the base station.

Base Station

At the base station end the system comprises of a wireless access point, fed with a 1W signal
booster, an omni directional antenna of gain 9dbi and an antenna mount for line-of-sight
communication. The net transmitted power was checked to be within the total power
dissipation allowed. This setup was tested for a range of approximately 3Kms with almost no
loss of connectivity.

Data Flow

The management of flow of video was implemented as a web service in ASP.NET 2.0. The
images are sampled are 7 frames per second and are transmitted over the wireless network.
When the secondary vehicle is deployed form the primary vehicle, the web service relays the
video transmission from the secondary vehicle, to application running at the base station.

The kill switch is implemented on an analog wireless link working at Channel 55.