Development of a Multiple Vehicle Collaborative Unmanned Aerial System
Mize · VCU Scholars Compass (Virginia Commonwealth University) · 2011
The purpose of this research was to design a multiple UAV system with collaborative operation. This project is built on work that has been done in the field of Unmanned Systems at VCU and is aimed at providing a starting point for research into collaborative control of multiple UAVs. The current GCS software was extended to include multiple vehicles per single controller via a new communication protocol. Many changes were made to the user interface to facilitate controlling multiple vehicles with a single operator. A second processor, called an MCS, was added to each vehicle to allow for greater flexibility and processing power, while maintaining backwards-compatibility and limiting infringement on the real-time processing of the FCS itself. The system was fully simulated via both hardware and software simulators, and ultimately the system was field tested using multiple vehicles collaboratively searching a defined area.