Development of an unmanned aerial vehicle for use during disaster situations

Abstract

The rise in natural disasters, combined with a decrease in the cost of miniaturised avionics has resulted in a significant interest in the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV's) within the disaster management field. This project seeks to serve as a first step towards developing a fully autonomous UAV targeted at this application. A com- prehensive literature review was undertaken to assess the current state of the art in small UAV research and establish the context for this project. Legislation and standards related to the development and operation of small UAV's in Australia was also reviewed. On completion of the review, an existing remote controlled aeroplane was purchased to be used as the parent vehicle and the control system hardware and software designed. The goal of this stage was to develop a UAV stabilisation system as a step towards fully autonomous flight. Some future work is required to rectify some problems that were encountered but significant progress was made. A y-by-wire or co-pilot mode was also developed to facilitate easy manual control of the aircraft and lead in to the integration of a navigation module. On completion of the final adjustments the UAV will undergo extensive flight trials to tune the control system ready for further research.