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Electrical and Computer Engineering

Brigham Young University

Faculty Publications

2006

Cooperative control

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Decentralized Cooperative Aerial Surveillance Using Fixed-Wing Miniature Uavs, Randal Beard, Derek Kingston, Timothy W. Mclain, Derek Nelson Jul 2006

Decentralized Cooperative Aerial Surveillance Using Fixed-Wing Miniature Uavs, Randal Beard, Derek Kingston, Timothy W. Mclain, Derek Nelson

Faculty Publications

Numerous applications require aerial surveillance. Civilian applications include monitoring forest fires, oil fields and pipelines, and tracking wildlife. Applications to homeland security include border patrol and monitoring the perimeter of nuclear power plants. Military applications are numerous. The current approach to these applications is to use a single manned vehicle for surveillance. However, manned vehicles are typically large and expensive. In addition, hazardous environments and operator fatigue can potentially threaten the life of the pilot. Therefore, there is a critical need for automating aerial surveillance using unmanned air vehicles (UAVs). This paper gives an overview of a cooperative control strategy …


Cooperative Forest Fire Surveillance Using A Team Of Small Unmanned Air Vehicles, Randal Beard, David Casbeer, Derek Kingston, Timothy W. Mclain, Sai-Ming Li, Raman Mehra Jan 2006

Cooperative Forest Fire Surveillance Using A Team Of Small Unmanned Air Vehicles, Randal Beard, David Casbeer, Derek Kingston, Timothy W. Mclain, Sai-Ming Li, Raman Mehra

Faculty Publications

This research was supported by NASA under STTR contract No. NNA04AA19C to Scientific Systems Company, Inc (SSCI) and Brigham Young University (BYU), and by AFOSR grants F49620-01-1-0091 and F49620-02-C- 0094. The objective of this paper is to explore the feasibility of using multiple low-altitude, short endurance (LASE) unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) to cooperatively monitor and track the propagation of large forest fires. A real-time algorithm for tracking the perimeter of a fire with an on-board infrared sensor is developed. Using this algorithm, we develop a decentralized multiple-UAV approach to monitoring the perimeter of the fire. The UAVs are assumed to …