Autonomous Airborne Monitoring System
Background: Autonomous systems have many advantages over human systems, especially for jobs that are unsafe
and/or tedious in nature. One specific job where this is true is persistent monitoring and imaging for environments
in which the user does not have complete control of their surroundings. Movies have long envisioned the use of
floating or flying systems capable of providing this monitoring in a variety of environments including indoors; and
with the development of relatively inexpensive Radio Controlled (RC) model helicopters and multi-rotor platforms,
these movie concepts are now practically realizable.
A New System Concept: This Senior Capstone Design project requires the integration of an off-the-shelf RC
helicopter / multi-rotor platform, sensors, and student-developed algorithms to create a system that autonomously
monitors and searches an indoor environment. The goal of this effort is to develop a system that performs the
monitoring and searching without prior knowledge of the environment and without human intervention while
relaying video (and possibly other sensor data) back to a ground station computer for storage. While at least one
camera would be necessary for the video feed, any suite of off-the-shelf sensors that can be carried by the flying
platform might be considered by the team for navigation purposes. It should be noted that GPS would not provide
the needed navigation performance given the system is intended to work primarily indoors. The indoor environment
also places limits on the size of the final system (roughly no more than 24” in any dimension). At the beginning of
the design process the team must consider what sensors and vehicle might be used, paying careful attention to the
size, weight, and power needs of the final system. A flight time of greater than 10 minutes is desired. A good
design process should include simulations of the system that help evaluate performance before full implementation
of the system in hardware. A spiral development model is also encouraged in the design process (such that
intermediate systems incrementally provide some of the capabilities envisioned in the final, ideal system). For any
hardware testing, safety must also be a primary consideration in the system design. At a minimum, a human
operator should be able to take control of the system at any time and, if need be, shut it down quickly.
Skills Needed For This To Work: (1) Solid software development skills (algorithm development is expected to be
the most difficult aspect of the design); (2) A good systems integration plan; (3) Professor or graduate student
leadership that is familiar with the literature relevant to the autonomous navigation problem (SLAM, visual
odometry, etc.); (4) Signal processing to extract useful information from raw sensor data; (5) Familiarity with
control theory; (6) Mechanisms to ensure the safety of hardware and operators during hardware testing.
Sponsor: Air Force Research Laboratory – Sensors Directorate, WPAFB, OH
Dr. Jacob Campbell, AFRL/RYRN, (937) 255-6127 x4154