Semi-autonomous control of an unmanned aerial vehicle

Abstract

Extensive development in the area of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) for multiple applications have been ongoing and one of the most common configuration today is the multi-rotor quadcopter configuration. The quadcopter is especially popular among flying enthusiasts and many applications of the quadcopter includes military reconnaissance, courier delivery and aerial photography. For this project, the objective is to design and build a quadcopter with a specific set of semi-autonomous capabilities for the purpose of competing in the Singapore Amazing Flying Machine Competition(SAFMC) 2016 under the Semi-Autonomous D1 category. The competition challenge came in the form of an indoor obstacle course and a pilot will fly the final design of the quadcopter to navigate through the entire obstacle course while completing a variety of tasks simultaneously. A microcontroller was used as the brain of the quadcopter and multiple electronic components were integrated to allow the quadcopter to perform functional tasks to clear the challenge during the competition. A ground station was also setup to allow the pilot to gain access to real-time video feed from the quadcopter and a Graphical User Interface(GUI) was designed to allow users to control and monitor the status of the quadcopter.