UBC Aerial Recon

the future is                            autonomous

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UBC Aerial Recon

Welcome to the site of The University of British Columbia Aerial Recon. This is an undergraduate based project primarily interested in the progression of autonomous technology. Our goal is to fully automate the control of a helicopter in 3D space. Helicopters have for a long time proven to be useful to all sectors of industry. They allow the precise control of camera views and are superior to fixed wing aircraft which do not have the capability to hover.

To date, the use of helicopters has been limited to large businesses due to the cost of running and maintaining such large helicopters and therefore personal or small business use of a helicopter is unreasonable. We have noticed the use of RC scale model helicopters in the filming and monitoring sector but the remote operator must maintain visual contact with the remote Helicopter and must have had hours of training just to take off the ground.

Our hope is that the UBC Aerial Recon will be able to bridge the gap between cost effective monitoring and ease of use for anyone with basic point and click computer skills. With advanced 3-axis accelerometers, gyros and magnetometers we are able to relieve the remote operator of the difficult task of maintaining a stable flight.  With the computer keeping the unit stable it is just up to the user to program the flight path into the computer and decide what needs to be filmed. The operator now has the ability to allow the helicopter to take care of the flying while he manages the pan tilt camera to take the best possible shots of the area of interest.

Features and Uses

• Aerial Photography
  Angles are endless and will allow panoramic shots of a specific scene or of an entire city.
• Aerial Mapping - Laser Ranging Sensor
  Acquiring digital maps of areas will be easy with the use of aerial laser imaging. The angles achieved from the air will allow you to exactly reproduce an area of interest with little effort and delimitates the need for you to set up several stations of ground equipment to get the required shots.
• Remote Area Inspection
  Using a tele-operated helicopter will increase your ability to monitor difficult to access areas.
• Military Reconnaissance
  Utilize the small size and minimal effort involved to deploy these mobile aircraft. You will now be able to get to the vantage point and gain valuable intel when coordinating with the ground team. Having the invaluable information of potential threats and the ability to choose the safest route makes the UBC Aerial Recon indispensable when it comes to well planned operations.
• Movie Filming
  Eliminating the expensive cost of full size helicopters, low budget films can utilize the SwissTech Aerial Recon in order to follow targets over water where conventional methods of tracks and vehicles prove too difficult and unstable to utilize. The ability to hover on a cushion of air allows extreme stability and also allows for the perfect footage to be taken.

Competition
In order to demonstrate a competent system and give a goal to our group members we are planning to enter an International Aerial Robotics Competition organized by the Association For Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI). In this competition there is a roughly 10 minute flight to a remote site where the helicopter will begin a search for an object of interest which can range from hazardous waste barrels to hostages in a terrorist cell. All of the sub competitions involve traveling a distance of at least 3km where the unmanned aerial vehicle is to locate an object of interest and report valuable information whether it be a still image or video camera stream.

 

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