Engineering Commons^™

A Study Of 5g Cellular Connectivity To Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Jackson Murrin

All Theses

The market of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has seen significant growth in the past ten years on both the commercial and military sides. The applications for UAVs are endless and options by manufacturers allow users to modify their drones for their specific goals. This industry has opened up the excitement of piloting vehicles in the air, photography, videography, exploration of nature from a different point of view and many other hobbies assisted by the emergence of UAVs. The growth of this industry coincides with the roll out of new 5G cellular network technology. This upgrade in cellular network infrastructure allows …

Machine Learning-Based Drone And Aerial Threat Detection For Increased Turret Gunner Survivability, Nikolas Koutsoubis

Theses and Dissertations

The introduction of aerial drones on the modern battlefield has transformed combat operations, posing a significant threat to ground-based military operations. Detecting drones in safety scenarios is crucial. However, modern machine learning (ML)-based object detectors struggle to detect small objects like drones. This thesis presents three main contributions: (a) data and algorithmic modifications to improve small object detection in YOLO to aid in drone detection, (b) the development of a benchmark drone detection dataset called DyViR, and (c) the implementation of explainable artificial intelligence (XAI) to ensure transparent and trustworthy decision-making. To boost the performance of small object detection, we …

Fault Diagnosis And Accommodation In Quadrotor Simultaneous Localization And Mapping Systems, Anthony J. Green

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) is the process of using distance measurements to points in the surrounding environment to build a digital map and perform localization. It has been observed that featureless environments like tunnels or straight hallways will cause positioning faults in SLAM. This research investigates the fault diagnosis and accommodation problem for a laser-rangefinder-based SLAM systems on a quadrotor. A potential solution of using optical flow as velocity estimate and an extended Kalman filter (EKF) to perform position estimation is proposed. A fault diagnosis method for detecting faults in positional SLAM data or optical flow velocity data is …

Detection, Tracking, And Classification Of Aircraft And Birds From Multirotor Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems, Chester Valentine Dolph

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The ability for small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) to safely operate beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) is of great interest to governments, businesses, and scientific research. One critical element for sUAS to operate BVLOS is the capability to avoid other air traffic. While many aircraft will be cooperative and broadcast their locations using Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B), it is expected that many aircraft will remain non-cooperative – meaning they do not communicate position or flight plan to other aircraft. Avoiding mid-air collisions with non-cooperative aircraft is a critical limitation to widespread sUAS flying BVLOS. Examples of non-cooperative traffic …

Self-Describing Fiducials For Gps-Denied Navigation Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Amanda J. Strate

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Accurate estimation of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s (UAV’s) location is critical for the operation of the UAV when it is controlled completely by its onboard processor. This can be particularly challenging in environments in which GPS is not available (GPS-denied). Many of the options previously explored for estimation of a UAV’s location without the use of GPS require more sophisticated processors than can feasibly be mounted on a UAV because of weight, size, and power restrictions. Many options are also aimed at indoor operation without the range capabilities to scale to outdoor operations. This research explores an alternative method of …

Automated Drone Calibration System, Jackie Kelly Jong-Mee Paik, Zach Nathan Richter, Tyler Wilson Van Den Berg, Ryan Alexander Zhan, Matthew Ward Carlson

Mechanical Engineering

The final design review of the Inspired Flight Calibration Team senior project will detail the process used to complete a verification prototype of a drone calibration device and discuss lessons learned and suggestions for improving this device. Going from brainstorming and conceptual prototyping all the way through verification prototyping and testing, we were able to design a gyroscopic device that met Inspired Flight’s needs for the flight sensor calibration of their drones. The mechanical design involved comprehensive CAD models and hands-on manufacturing. The mechatronics side of the project worked heavily with electrical wiring and writing custom software to communicate and …

Gesture-Controlled Quadcopter System, Wenhao Yang, Anthony Xu, Kendra Crawford

Honors Theses

According to the statistic given by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 514 police officers casualties have been attributed to gunfire in the last decade(2008-2017). It is the leading cause of death among police officers and accounts for more than a third of the total 1511 police casualties in the past decade. In this project, we want to provide a safer solution to police officers that are surveying a building for one or multiple potential dangerous personnel. We are working to design and build a gesture-controlled quadcopter that can scout ahead of the officer and provide information about the …

Radio Frequency Toolbox For Drone Detection And Classification, Abdulkabir Bello

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The continuous development of inexpensive embedded sensors has led to the rapid proliferation of new civilian use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) or drones. It is now easier for civilians to own drones as the cost falls. As we all know drones have a variety of important applications and can also be used for negative effects too. These drones can pose a threat to the security of the population either civilian, organization or industry. There is a need for Radio Frequency Signal Classification (RF-Class) toolbox which can monitor, detect, and classify RF signals from drone communication system. The ability to …

Real Time And High Fidelity Quadcopter Tracking System, Tyler Mckay Hall

Computer Engineering

This project was conceived as a desired to have an affordable, flexible and physically compact tracking system for high accuracy spatial and orientation tracking. Specifically, this implementation is focused on providing a low cost motion capture system for future research. It is a tool to enable the further creation of systems that would require the use of accurate placement of landing pads, payload acquires and delivery. This system will provide the quadcopter platform a coordinate system that can be used in addition to GPS.

Field research with quadcopter manufacturers, photographers, agriculture and research organizations were contact and interviewed for information …

Customizing Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks To Individual Drivers And Traffic Conditions, Ali Rakhshan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the ability to individualize vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) in order to improve safety. Adapting a VANET to both its individual drivers' characteristics and traffic conditions enables it to transmit in a smart manner to other vehicles. This improvement is now possible due to the progress that is being made in VANETs. To accomplish this adaptation, our approach is to use VANET data to learn drivers' characteristics. This information along with the traffic data, can be used to customize the VANETs to individual drivers. In this dissertation, we show that this process benefits all the drivers by …

Sensor Characterization And Signal Fusion For Instanteye, Wyman T. Smith

Honors Theses and Capstones

The practicality and effectiveness of using a TerraRanger Duo—a parallel sonar and infrared time-of-flight distance sensor—payload for obstacle detection is investigated for use with Physical Science Inc.’s InstantEye drone. A Python program was developed to interface with the serial data output before comparing the sensor’s empirical performance against its data sheet. The two signals from the distinct sensor modules, each with their characterized strengths and weaknesses, were then fused with a Kalman filter. This was further refined by imposing conditional weighting based on the known sensor characteristics. The filter output, with conditional corrections, was able to accurately track a single …

Tilt-Rotor Drone, Benjamin Stone, Zachary Crandall

Electrical Engineering

A drone is defined a "an unmanned aircraft that can fly autonomously[2]." In the year 2016, there exist many applications for small scale drones. Drones, having had primarily military applications, now have use in hobby robotics, photography, and even in surveying. But drones have not yet been perfected and still have room for much improvement. Several problems with drones come in the form of battery life, stability, and size. Large drones can fit many sensors and probes, but are heavy and have less flight time. For autonomous drones, stability can be an issue even though there exist many stable drones. …