Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 2 of 2
Full-Text Articles in Mechanical Engineering
Fault Detection For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles With Non-Redundant Sensors, Brandon Jeffrey Cannon
Fault Detection For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles With Non-Redundant Sensors, Brandon Jeffrey Cannon
Theses and Dissertations
To operate, autonomous systems of necessity employ a variety of sensors to perceive their environment. Many small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are unable to carry redundant sensors due to size, weight, and power (SWaP) constraints. Faults in these sensors can cause undesired behavior, including system instability. Thus, detection of faults in these non-redundant sensors is of paramount importance.The problem of detecting sensor faults in non-redundant sensors on board autonomous aircraft is non-trivial. Factors that make development of a solution difficult include both an inability to perfectly characterize systems and sensors as well as the SWaP constraints inherent with small UAV. …
Automated Landing Site Determination For Unmanned Rotocraft Surveillance Applications, Justin Keith Mackay
Automated Landing Site Determination For Unmanned Rotocraft Surveillance Applications, Justin Keith Mackay
Theses and Dissertations
Unmanned air vehicles have been increasing in their autonomous capabilities. This research furthers these capabilities by focusing on the automation of landing site determination for rotorcraft in urban environments. Automated landing saves energy and allows the aircraft to choose areas that are safe for people and the aircraft. Two methods are used to gather information about the terrain of potential landing sites. One method is 3D reconstruction from multiple camera images. The other method uses a range sensor to reconstruct the terrain. Both of these methods create an inertial terrain map of the environment in the form of a point …