Test bed for applications of heterogeneous unmanned vehicles

This article addresses the development and implementation of a test bed for applications of heterogeneous unmanned vehicle systems. The test bed consists of unmanned aerial vehicles (Parrot AR.Drones versions 1 or 2, Parrot SA, Paris, France, and Bebop Drones 1.0 and 2.0, Parrot SA, Paris, France), ground vehicles (WowWee Rovio, WowWee Group Limited, Hong Kong, China), and the motion capture systems VICON and OptiTrack. Such test bed allows the user to choose between two different options of development environments, to perform aerial and ground vehicles applications. On the one hand, it is possible to select an environment based on the VICON system and LabVIEW (National Instruments) or robotics operating system platforms, which make use the Parrot AR.Drone software development kit or the Bebop_autonomy Driver to communicate with the unmanned vehicles. On the other hand, it is possible to employ a platform that uses the OptiTrack system and that allows users to develop their own applications, replacing AR.Drone’s original firmware with original code. We have developed four experimental setups to illustrate the use of the Parrot software development kit, the Bebop Driver (AutonomyLab, Simon Fraser University, British Columbia, Canada), and the original firmware replacement for performing a strategy that involves both ground and aerial vehicle tracking. Finally, in order to illustrate the effectiveness of the developed test bed for the implementation of advanced controllers, we present experimental results of the implementation of three consensus algorithms: static, adaptive, and neural network, in order to accomplish that a team of multiagents systems move together to track a target.

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The New Evolution for SIA Rotorcraft UAV Project

Journal of Robotics ◽

10.1155/2010/743010 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 2010 ◽

pp. 1-9 ◽

Cited By ~ 9

Author(s):

Juntong Qi ◽

Dalei Song ◽

Lei Dai ◽

Jianda Han ◽

Yuechao Wang

Keyword(s):

Control Method ◽

Test Bed ◽

Advanced Control ◽

Autonomous Mode ◽

Chinese Academy Of Sciences ◽

Aerial Vehicle ◽

Active Modeling ◽

Rotorcraft Uav ◽

The One ◽

Academy Of Sciences

This paper describes recent research on the design, implement, and testing of a new small-scaled rotorcraft Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (RUAV) system—ServoHeli-40. A turbine-powered UAV weighted less than 15 kg was designed, and its major components were tested at the Shenyang Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shenyang, China. The aircraft was designed to reach a top speed of more than 20 mps, flying a distance of more than 10 kilometers, and it is going to be used as a test-bed for experimentally evaluating advanced control methodologies dedicated on improving the maneuverability, reliability, as well as autonomy of RUAV. Sensors and controller are all onboard. The full system has been tested successfully in the autonomous mode using the multichannel active modeling controller. The results show that in a real windy environment the rotorcraft UAV can follow the trajectory which was assigned by the ground control station exactly, and the new control method is obviously more effective than the one in the past year's research.

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Distributed sensing units deploying on group unmanned vehicles

International Journal of Distributed Sensor Networks ◽

10.1177/15501477211036877 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 17 (7) ◽

pp. 155014772110368

Author(s):

Bao Rong Chang ◽

Hsiu-Fen Tsai ◽

Jyong-Lin Lyu ◽

Chien-Feng Huang

Keyword(s):

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle ◽

Video Recording ◽

Three Dimensional ◽

Unmanned Vehicles ◽

Flight Path ◽

Movement Trajectory ◽

Ground Vehicles ◽

Aerial Vehicle ◽

Cooperative Coordination ◽

The Internet Of Things

This study aims to use two unmanned vehicles (aerial vehicles and ground vehicles) to implement multi-machine cooperation to complete the assigned tasks quickly. Unmanned aerial/ground vehicles can call each other to send instant inquiry messages using the proposed cooperative communication protocol to hand over the tasks between them and execute efficient three-dimensional collaborative operations in time. This study has demonstrated integrating unmanned aerial/ground vehicles into a group through the control platform (i.e. App operation interface) that uses the Internet of Things. Therefore, pilots can make decisions and communicate through App for cooperative coordination, allowing a group of unmanned aerial/ground vehicles to complete the tasks flexibly. In addition, the payload attached to unmanned air/ground vehicles can carry out multipurpose monitoring that implements face recognition, gas detection, thermal imaging, and video recording. During the experiment of unmanned aerial vehicle, unmanned aerial vehicle will plan the flight path and record the movement trajectory with global positioning system when it is on duty. As a result, the accuracy of the planned flight path achieved 86.89% on average.

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Towards a software development kit for motion synthesis in virtual worlds

Proceedings Seventh International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia ◽

10.1109/vsmm.2001.969761 ◽

2002 ◽

Author(s):

T. Simeon ◽

J.-P. Laumond ◽

F. Lamiraux

Keyword(s):

Software Development ◽

Virtual Worlds ◽

Motion Synthesis ◽

Software Development Kit

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Design on Hierarchical Testing System for Unmanned Ground Vehicles

Advanced Materials Research ◽

10.4028/www.scientific.net/amr.346.817 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 346 ◽

pp. 817-822 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Xin Li ◽

Guang Ming Xiong ◽

Yang Sun ◽

Shao Bin Wu ◽

Jian Wei Gong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Evaluation System ◽

Test System ◽

Unmanned Vehicles ◽

Intelligent Vehicles ◽

Test Method ◽

Unmanned Ground Vehicles ◽

Ground Vehicles ◽

Test Environment ◽

Test And Evaluation ◽

Comprehensive Test

The test system for technical abilities of unmanned vehicles is gradually developed from the single test to comprehensive test. The pre-established test and evaluation system can promote the development of unmanned ground vehicles. The 2009 Future Challenge: Intelligent Vehicles and Beyond (FC’09) pushed China's unmanned vehicles out of laboratories. This paper proposed to design a more scientific and comprehensive test system for future competitions to better guide and regulate the development of China's unmanned vehicles. According to the design idea of stage by stage and level by level, the hierarchical test content from simple to advanced, from local to overall is designed. Then the hierarchic test environment is established according to the levels of test content. The test method based on multi-platform and multi-sensor is put forward to ensure the accuracy of test results. The testing criterion framework is set up to regulate future unmanned vehicle contests and to assess the unmanned vehicles scientifically and accurately.

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Kinematic Geometry of Wheeled Vehicle Systems

Volume 2B: 24th Biennial Mechanisms Conference ◽

10.1115/96-detc/mech-1137 ◽

1996 ◽

Author(s):

S. V. Sreenivasan ◽

P. Nanua

Keyword(s):

Geometric Approach ◽

Companion Paper ◽

Kinematic Chains ◽

Uneven Terrain ◽

Geometric Conditions ◽

Kinematic Study ◽

Vehicle Systems ◽

Motion Characteristics ◽

The One ◽

Wheeled Vehicles

Abstract This paper addresses instantaneous motion characteristics of wheeled vehicles systems on even and uneven terrain. A thorough kinematic geometric approach which utilizes screw system theory is used to investigate vehicle-terrain combinations as spatial mechanisms that possess multiple closed kinematic chains. It is shown that if the vehicle-terrain combination satisfies certain geometric conditions, for instance when the vehicle operates on even terrain, the system becomes singular or non-Kutzbachian — it possesses finite range mobility that is different from the one obtained using Kutzbach criterion. An application of this geometric approach to the study of rate kinematics of various classes of wheeled vehicles is also included. This approach provides an integrated framework to study the kinematic effects of varying the vehicle and/or terrain geometric parameters from their nominal values. In addition, design enhancements of existing vehicles are suggested using this approach. This kinematic study is closely related to the force distribution characteristics of wheeled vehicles which is the subject of the companion paper [SN96].

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Proportional Navigation (PN) Based Tracking of Ground Targets by Quadrotor UAVs

Volume 1: Aerial Vehicles; Aerospace Control; Alternative Energy; Automotive Control Systems; Battery Systems; Beams and Flexible Structures; Biologically-Inspired Control and its Applications; Bio-Medical and Bio-Mechanical Systems; Biomedical Robots and Rehab; Bipeds and Locomotion; Control Design Methods for Adv. Powertrain Systems and Components; Control of Adv. Combustion Engines, Building Energy Systems, Mechanical Systems; Control, Monitoring, and Energy Harvesting of Vibratory Systems ◽

10.1115/dscc2013-3887 ◽

2013 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Ruoyu Tan ◽

Manish Kumar

Keyword(s):

Target Tracking ◽

Proportional Navigation ◽

Tracking Method ◽

Maneuvering Targets ◽

Time Optimal ◽

Aerial Vehicle ◽

Quadrotor Uavs ◽

The One ◽

Rotary Wing ◽

Guidance Laws

This paper addresses the problem of controlling a rotary wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) tracking a target moving on ground. The target tracking problem by UAVs has received much attention recently and several techniques have been developed in literature most of which have been applied to fixed wing aircrafts. The use of quadrotor UAVs, the subject of this paper, for target tracking presents several challenges especially for highly maneuvering targets since the development of time-optimal controller (required if target is maneuvering fast) for quadrotor UAVs is extremely difficult due to highly non-linear dynamics. The primary contribution of this paper is the development of a proportional navigation (PN) based method and its implementation on quad-rotor UAVs to track moving ground target. The PN techniques are known to be time-optimal in nature and have been used in literature for developing guidance systems for missiles. There are several types of guidance laws that come within the broad umbrella of the PN method. The paper compares the performance of these guidance laws for their application on quadrotors and chooses the one that performs the best. Furthermore, to apply this method for target tracking instead of the traditional objective of target interception, a switching strategy has also been designed. The method has been compared with respect to the commonly used Proportional Derivative (PD) method for target tracking. The experiments and numerical simulations performed using maneuvering targets show that the proposed tracking method not only carries out effective tracking but also results into smaller oscillations and errors when compared to the widely used PD tracking method.

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