2018/10/12 by Brommer, Christian, Malyuta, Danylo, Hentzen, Daniel +1
#FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Electrical engineering #Robotics (cs.RO) #Systems and Control (eess.SY) #electronic engineering #information engineering
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1810.05683
Many unmanned aerial vehicle surveillance and monitoring applications require observations at precise locations over long periods of time, ideally days or weeks at a time (e.g. ecosystem monitoring), which has been impractical due to limited endurance and the requirement of humans in the loop for operation. To overcome these limitations, we propose a fully autonomous small rotorcraft UAS that is capable of performing repeated sorties for long-term observation missions without any human intervention. We address two key technologies that are critical for such a system: full platform autonomy including emergency response to enable mission execution independently from human operators, and the ability of vision-based precision landing on a recharging station for automated energy replenishment. Experimental results of up to 11 hours of fully autonomous operation in indoor and outdoor environments illustrate the capability of our system.