Development of a Comprehensive Software System for Cargo Transportation by Unmanned Helicopters
Peidong Liu, Xiangxu Dong, Fei Wang, Ben M. Chen · Proceedings of International Conference on Intelligent Unmanned Systems · 2014
Helicopters are extensively used for cargo transportation. It is difficult to design and implement an unmanned system to fulfill such a task. In this work, we present a comprehensive software architecture to tackle the cargo transportation problem between moving platforms. The presented software system is capable of handling all the required tasks, consisting of automatic taking off, moving platforms tracking, cargo identifying, grabbing, delivering and unloading, home returning and automatic landing. The integrated system was tested in the 2nd AVIC Cup – International UAV Innovation Grand Prix Competition, held in Beijing in September 2013, and won the first place in the final round. The actual results captured during the competition verify the robustness and capabilities of the proposed software architecture.