The autonomous unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle navigation and user interface

Abstract

There has been a steep growth, throughout the World, in civilian UAV applications. UAVs offer cost effective alternatives for many applications, as they enable objectives be carried out without the risk to pilots. In terms of crop surveillance, they offer a cheap alternative to satellite and manned aerial imagery. These current techniques are limited due to cloud cover, and poor image capture resolution. By flying a UAV at low altitudes, these limitations may be greatly reduced. With the recent financial commitment from the Queensland State Government, to the funding of a UAV research and development facility, the future of UAV technology and its potential market is being recognized. Current UAV navigation and guidance packages on the market are prohibitively expensive. This paper describes the design and implementation of a cheap navigation and user interface for the specific purpose of carrying out surveillance over a pre-determined flight path in a UAV. The system has been designed assuming a suitable automatic flight control system is available, for receipt of the guidance outputs.