Unmanned aerial vehicles: challenges and technologies for improved autonomy
George Vachtsevanos, Ben T. Ludington · International Conference on Systems · 2006
This paper describes recent advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles aimed at improving their autonomy and reliability for a diverse domain of applications from forest fires and rescue operations to military and border patrol missions. We introduce an experimental VTOL aircraft and discuss instrumentation requirements and control strategies that are essential to maintain stable operations as the vehicle executes extreme maneuvers. We review next mission scenarios that require the deployment of multiple UAVs and suggest briefly mission planning and control algorithms to achieve such challenging tasks. The control technologies are demonstrated through flight testing that illustrate the effectiveness and robustness of the planning and control strategies.