UAV Research

Hi all, I'm interested in doing my masters thesis (in EE) over UAV's. Does anyone have any suggestions on a research topic. My school doesn't currently have any research in this area, but I'd like to change that. Budget is kinda low but I can be pretty resourceful (if anyone has knows of a grant or two that would be awesome!!) Here are a few of the better ideas that have been rolling around in my head.

My original idea was to monitor crop health using IR cameras. (Seems that its been done)
Next idea Unmanned air and ground vehicles swarming together. Air vehicle guides ground vehicles. - (Recently started looking at this so far attempts haven't worked right)
Quadrotor or multi motor airplane fault recovery. Compensating for motor or other mechanical failure. (just thought of this while writing)

I appreciate any ideas anyone has. I'm feeling like I'm trying to get in at the end of the curve.... :/

I have no idea what the existing body of work looks like here, but I was just chatting about something that I sort of wonder if it has ever been done - and may well make a thesis. Some of the members were talking about resetting their IMU in flight, and trying to figure out how to re-level it, have it 1) understand its current attitude with respect to the earth, so that it could refigure its DCM, and 2) calculate an INS solution so that it could 3) resume controlled and planned flight. Now, the APM board is a great test bed, because you CAN cause the IMU to reset in flight, you have complete access to the code, and all the people who write and use it, and it is cost-effective and has more sensors than many full scale planes. I do not know if it has been done, but with "public" UAV crash statistics where they are, some research into UAV recovery (not just of the hardware, but of the brains, sensors, etc) is a fertile area, I suspect.

The air/ground hive or mesh stuff - I have seen what appears to be successful research in this area, with videos, mobile ground platforms, flying drones, all moving, landing, moving. It looked to me like some guys have got it working, in the lab, but I did not get into the details to see how much was news fluff marketing and if the challenges were met.

Here is one I saw recently. I think I saw some before this that looked good to, but this one is the most recent that I have seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbIs7hS-OMs. I believe the ground robots elect a leader or some business, and gives instructions to the others, including the aerial, but placement of the hive-master is a modest variation, given the size of these bots, no?

Tremendous interest in agro-drones these days, universities launching whole groups to do work, companies forming, very exciting time to get involved, I think.

Good luck in your thesis hunt!

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Michael Pursifull September 15, 2011 at 12:22am

I have no idea what the existing body of work looks like here, but I was just chatting about something that I sort of wonder if it has ever been done - and may well make a thesis. Some of the members were talking about resetting their IMU in flight, and trying to figure out how to re-level it, have it 1) understand its current attitude with respect to the earth, so that it could refigure its DCM, and 2) calculate an INS solution so that it could 3) resume controlled and planned flight. Now, the APM board is a great test bed, because you CAN cause the IMU to reset in flight, you have complete access to the code, and all the people who write and use it, and it is cost-effective and has more sensors than many full scale planes. I do not know if it has been done, but with "public" UAV crash statistics where they are, some research into UAV recovery (not just of the hardware, but of the brains, sensors, etc) is a fertile area, I suspect.

The air/ground hive or mesh stuff - I have seen what appears to be successful research in this area, with videos, mobile ground platforms, flying drones, all moving, landing, moving. It looked to me like some guys have got it working, in the lab, but I did not get into the details to see how much was news fluff marketing and if the challenges were met.

Here is one I saw recently. I think I saw some before this that looked good to, but this one is the most recent that I have seen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbIs7hS-OMs. I believe the ground robots elect a leader or some business, and gives instructions to the others, including the aerial, but placement of the hive-master is a modest variation, given the size of these bots, no?

Tremendous interest in agro-drones these days, universities launching whole groups to do work, companies forming, very exciting time to get involved, I think.

Good luck in your thesis hunt!

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