无人机技术在观音阁水库的应用研究

随着无人机技术的不断发展,其在水利行业的应用受到广泛的关注。为提升水利信息化水平,运用无人机技术作为空间数据获取的重要手段,是对卫星、有人飞机遥感等传统遥感技术的有力补充。以无人机技术为核心,以其在观音阁水库的测绘应用为实例,介绍无人机地面站的操作流程,以及图像数据处理软件Pix4Dmapper的使用方法,论证无人机具有适用地形广泛,影像传输实时性强,运行成本低,操纵快速高效等优点;最后剖析无人机技术在山洪灾害、水资源、水利工程测量规划等方面的应用方向,并指出其在水利行业发展亟需解决的问题。     

无人机多机动目标自主探测与跟踪

无人机机载相机图像中机动目标尺寸较小而且会发生显著变化,加上大量的背景噪声干扰,给目标探测和跟踪带来很大困难.针对这些问题,本文提出了一种在无人机机载相机图像序列中自主探测与跟踪多个机动目标的方法.首先,提取目标的图像数字特征并采用级联分类算法进行特征分类,得到目标的强分类器,对目标进行自主探测搜索.然后,基于全局最优关联算法对探测回波进行关联滤波,实现对多个机动目标的跟踪与识别,其中最优关联代价矩阵融合了距离和方向信息,提高了关联和跟踪的鲁棒性.将无人机航拍图像序列中的地面坦克作为目标进行实验,结果表明本文算法可以实现对多个机动目标的自主探测和跟踪,并具有较好的跟踪鲁棒性.     

Al‐Robotics team: A cooperative multi‐unmanned aerial vehicle approach for the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge

The Al‐Robotics team was selected as one of the 25 finalist teams out of 143 applications received to participate in the first edition of the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotic Challenge (MBZIRC), held in 2017. In particular, one of the competition Challenges offered us the opportunity to develop a cooperative approach with multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) searching, picking up, and dropping static and moving objects. This paper presents the approach that our team Al‐Robotics followed to address that Challenge 3 of the MBZIRC. First, we overview the overall architecture of the system, with the different modules involved. Second, we describe the procedure that we followed to design the aerial platforms, as well as all their onboard components. Then, we explain the techniques that we used to develop the software functionalities of the system. Finally, we discuss our experimental results and the lessons that we learned before and during the competition. The cooperative approach was validated with fully autonomous missions in experiments previous to the actual competition. We also analyze the results that we obtained during the competition trials.     

考虑信息成功传递概率的多无人机协同目标最优观测与跟踪

针对考虑通信因素的多无人机协同目标最优观测与跟踪问题, 引入费舍信息矩阵对无人机探测所获取的信息进行表征, 考虑无线通信链路特性并对无人机间信息成功传递概率进行建模. 以无人机群体所获取的关于目标的信息量为指标函数, 分别建立是否考虑通信因素情况下的多机协同目标最优观测及跟踪问题模型. 对两种情况下的多机协同目标观测与跟踪进行仿真比较, 仿真结果验证了所建模型的有效性, 并体现了通信因素的重要影响.

     

无人机载荷航拍控制系统设计

针对无人机(UAV)遥感航拍过程中相机载荷参数自动化控制与飞行航迹实时跟踪的问题,提出一种能自动完成相机载荷控制与航拍控制的设计方案.首先,系统根据实验要求实时获取所在地理位置信息及环境预判信息,再根据相机控制参数表进行参数编码;然后,通过通信口发送自定义协议指令集给硬件控制电路,完成相机载荷参数设置并进行拍摄,同时航迹规划软件实时记录飞行轨迹地理坐标信息.系统设计使硬件控制平台和软件数据处理相结合,实现软硬协同控制.经无人机飞行验证,与单一参数航拍控制模式相比,该系统能根据不同的拍摄环境和拍摄场景进行相机参数的自动化控制与飞行轨迹实施跟踪.     

Robotic technologies for solar‐powered UAVs: Fully autonomous updraft‐aware aerial sensing for multiday search‐and‐rescue missions

Large‐scale aerial sensing missions can greatly benefit from the perpetual endurance capability provided by high‐performance low‐altitude solar‐powered unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). However, today these UAVs suffer from small payload capacity, low energetic margins, and high operational complexity. To tackle these problems, this paper presents four individual technical contributions and integrates them into an existing solar‐powered UAV system: First, a lightweight and power‐efficient day/night‐capable sensing system is discussed. Second, means to optimize the UAV platform to the specific payload and to thereby achieve sufficient energetic margins for day/night flight with payload are presented. Third, existing autonomous launch and landing functionality is extended for solar‐powered UAVs. Fourth, as a main contribution an extended Kalman filter (EKF)‐based autonomous thermal updraft tracking framework is developed. Its novelty is that it allows the end‐to‐end integration of the thermal‐induced roll moment into the estimation process. It is assessed against unscented Kalman filter and particle filter methods in simulation and implemented on the aircraft's low‐power autopilot. The complete system is verified during a 26 h search‐and‐rescue aerial sensing mock‐up mission that represents the first‐ever fully autonomous perpetual endurance flight of a small solar‐powered UAV with a day/night‐capable sensing payload. It also represents the first time that solar‐electric propulsion and autonomous thermal updraft tracking are combined in flight. In contrast to previous work that has focused on the energetic feasibility of perpetual flight, the individual technical contributions of this paper are considered core functionality to guarantee ease‐of‐use, effectivity, and reliability in future multiday aerial sensing operations with small solar‐powered UAVs.     

Stable camera position control of unmanned aerial vehicle with three‐degree‐of‐freedom manipulator for visual test of bridge inspection

This paper describes a camera position control with aerial manipulator for visual test of bridge inspection. Our developed unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has three‐degree‐of‐freedom (3‐DoF) manipulator on its top to execute visual or hammering test of the inspection. This paper focuses on the visual test. A camera was implemented at the end of the manipulator to acquire images of the narrow space of the bridge such as bearings, which the conventional UAV without the camera‐attached manipulators at its top cannot achieve the fine visual test. For the visual test, it is desirable that the camera is above the body with enough distance between the camera and the body. As obvious, the camera position in the inertial coordinate system is effected by the movement of the body. Therefore we implement the camera position control compensating the body movement into the UAV. As a result of an experiment, it is assessed that the proposed control reduces the position error of the camera comparing the one of the body. The mean position error of the camera is 0.039 m that is 51.4% of the one of the body. Our world‐first study enables to acquire the image of the bearing of the bridge by a camera mounted at the end effector of aerial manipulator fixed on UAV.     

A real‐time field experiment on search and rescue operations assisted by unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper reports on the performance of a novel system for supporting search and rescue activities, known as SARUAV (search and rescue unmanned aerial vehicle), in a field experiment during which a real‐world search scenario was simulated. The experiment took place on March 2–3, 2017, at two sites located in southwestern Poland. Three groups acted in the experiment: (1) SARUAV and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operators, (2) ground searchers, and (3) participants who simulated being lost. In the uncomplicated topography without snow cover, the system identified the lost persons, and ground searchers found them 31 min after the SARUAV report had been disseminated. In the mountainous area covered with snow, one person was found within 9 min after searchers received the SARUAV report; however, the other two persons were not identified by SARUAV. The field experiment served as a proof of concept of the SARUAV system, confirmed its potential in person identification studies, and helped to identify numerous scientific and technical problems that need to be solved to develop a mature version of the system.     

An open‐source system for vision‐based micro‐aerial vehicle mapping,planning, and flight in cluttered environments

We present an open‐source system for Micro‐Aerial Vehicle (MAV) autonomous navigation from vision‐based sensing. Our system focuses on dense mapping, safe local planning, and global trajectory generation, especially when using narrow field‐of‐view sensors in very cluttered environments. In addition, details about other necessary parts of the system and special considerations for applications in real‐world scenarios are presented. We focus our experiments on evaluating global planning, path smoothing, and local planning methods on real maps made on MAVs in realistic search‐and‐rescue and industrial inspection scenarios. We also perform thousands of simulations in cluttered synthetic environments, and finally validate the complete system in real‐world experiments.     

Long‐duration fully autonomous operation of rotorcraft unmanned aerial systems for remote‐sensing data acquisition

Recent applications of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to precision agriculture have shown increased ease and efficiency in data collection at precise remote locations. However, further enhancement of the field requires operation over long periods of time, for example, days or weeks. This has so far been impractical due to the limited flight times of such platforms and the requirement of humans in the loop for operation. To overcome these limitations, we propose a fully autonomous rotorcraft UAS that is capable of performing repeated flights for long‐term observation missions without any human intervention. We address two key technologies that are critical for such a system: full platform autonomy to enable mission execution independently from human operators and the ability of vision‐based precision landing on a recharging station for automated energy replenishment. High‐level autonomous decision making is implemented as a hierarchy of master and slave state machines. Vision‐based precision landing is enabled by estimating the landing pad's pose using a bundle of AprilTag fiducials configured for detection from a wide range of altitudes. We provide an extensive evaluation of the landing pad pose estimation accuracy as a function of the bundle's geometry. The functionality of the complete system is demonstrated through two indoor experiments with duration of 11 and 10.6 hr, and one outdoor experiment with a duration of 4 hr. The UAS executed 16, 48, and 22 flights, respectively, during these experiments. In the outdoor experiment, the ratio between flying to collect data and charging was 1–10, which is similar to past work in this domain. All flights were fully autonomous with no human in the loop. To our best knowledge, this is the first research publication about the long‐term outdoor operation of a quadrotor system with no human interaction.     

Fast vision‐based autonomous detection of moving cooperative target for unmanned aerial vehicle landing

We propose a fast and effective method, fast target detection (FTD), to detect the moving cooperative target for the unmanned aerial vehicle landing, and the target is composed of double circles and a cross. The purpose of our strategy is to land on the target. The FTD method needs to detect the target at the high and low heights. At the high height, the target appears completely and stably in the camera field. The FTD method can detect the circle and cross to rapidly reach the target center, named cross and circle–FTD (). To detect the cross, we propose a slope distance equation to obtain the distance between two slopes. The proposed slopes cluster method, based on the distance equation and K‐means, is used to determine the cross center. At the low height, the target appears incompletely and unstably. Therefore, FTD methods detect only the cross, named cross–FTD (). We extract the cross features ( CFs) based on line segments. Then, four CFs are combined based on graph theory. Experiments on our four datasets show that FTD has rapid speed and good performance. (Our method is implemented in C++ and is available at https://github.com/Li-Zhaoxi/UAV-Vision-Servo .) On the Mohamed Bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge datasets made we constructed, detects the target from a image approximately per pipeline with F‐measure and tracks target approximately per pipeline with F‐measure. detects centers from a image at approximately per image with F‐measure.     

利用无人机多光谱影像数据构建棉苗株数估算模型

目的 针对农业机械化、信息化和智能化发展对棉花长势快速监测与评估提出的需求,提出一种新的技术途径,依据低空无人机UAV（unmanned aerial vehicle）遥感技术为苗期棉花株数快速估算和长势等级分类。方法 基于高分辨率无人机多光谱遥感影像,利用光谱信息、空间位置及数学形态学信息,结合田间调查数据,引入Hough变换等数学形态学方法实现田间棉苗垄中心线的提取,利用支持向量机回归方法构建具有较好稳健性的棉株估算模型,并依据株数估算结果进一步实现了保苗率、壮苗率计算和整体长势等级分类。结果 以田间实地测量得到的样方数据为参考,对模型棉株估算精度评估的结果显示：支持向量机回归模型得到的株数估算精度更高,优于对比模型,估算值与观测值之间的确定系数R²为0.945 6,均方根误差为0.510 7。以株数为指标评估得到的整体长势空间分布与地面样方调查情况一致,实验田块里弱、壮、旺苗的比例分别为14.50%、83.37%、2.13%,表明研究区棉田出苗整齐度较差,整体长势偏弱。结论 本文建立的棉苗株数与数学形态特征的回归模型能有效识别棉苗株数并进行整体长势等级分类,可为精准田间管理提供依据,为无人机在农业中的应用提供参考。     

The nested k‐means method: A new approach for detecting lost persons in aerial images acquired by unmanned aerial vehicles

A new method, named as the nested k‐means, for detecting a person captured in aerial images acquired by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), is presented. The nested k‐means method is used in a newly built system that supports search and rescue (SAR) activities through processing of aerial photographs taken in visible light spectra (red‐green‐blue channels, RGB). First, the k‐means classification is utilized to identify clusters of colors in a three‐dimensional space (RGB). Second, the k‐means method is used to verify if the automatically selected class of colors is concurrently spatially clustered in a two‐dimensional space (easting‐northing, EN), and has human‐size area. The UAV images were acquired during the field campaign carried out in the Izerskie Mountains (SW Poland). The experiment aimed to observe several persons using an RGB camera, in spring and winter, during various periods of day, in uncovered terrain and sparse forest. It was found that the nested k‐means method has a considerable potential for detecting a person lost in the wilderness and allows to reduce area to be searched to 4.4 and 7.3% in spring and winter, respectively. In winter, land cover influences the performance of the nested k‐means method, with better skills in sparse forest than in the uncovered terrain. In spring, such a relationship does not hold. The nested k‐means method may provide the SAR teams with a tool for near real‐time detection of a person and, as a consequence, to reduce search area to approximately 0.5–7.3% of total terrain to be visited, depending on season and land cover.     

固定翼无人机自动着陆的一体化制导控制

本文基于制导控制一体化方法的思想,将滑模变结构控制和自抗扰控制技术结合于动态面控制结构中,提出一种固定翼无人机自动着陆方法.在建立六自由度无人机模型、无人机和目标点间的相对视线角度模型的基础上,在动态面控制框架下加入滑模变结构控制来设计制导控制一体化方法.在此过程中加入自抗扰控制技术,提高了系统对未建模部分、参数的不确定性和外界干扰的鲁棒性,并抑制了滑模变结构控制的抖振.该方法使得无人机在平稳地飞向目标点的同时能够满足着陆视线角度的约束.文中详细论述设计思想和设计方法,最后通过仿真验证说明本文方法的有效性.     

Nonlinear control with integral sliding properties for circular aerial robot trajectory tracking: Real‐time validation

A nonlinear control algorithm for tracking dynamic trajectories using an aerial vehicle is developed in this work. The control structure is designed using a sliding mode methodology, which contains integral sliding properties. The stability analysis of the closed‐loop system is proved using the Lyapunov formalism, ensuring convergence in a desired finite time and robustness toward unknown and external perturbations from the first time instant, even for high frequency disturbances. In addition, a dynamic trajectory is constructed with the translational dynamics of an aerial robot for autonomous take‐off, surveillance missions, and landing. This trajectory respects the constraints imposed by the vehicle characteristics, allowing free initial trajectory conditions. Simulation results demonstrate the good performance of the controller in closed‐loop system when a quadrotor follows the designed trajectory. In addition, flight tests are developed to validate the trajectory and the controller behavior in real time.     

CCM‐SLAM: Robust and efficient centralized collaborative monocular simultaneous localization and mapping for robotic teams

Robotic collaboration promises increased robustness and efficiency of missions with great potential in applications, such as search‐and‐rescue and agriculture. Multiagent collaborative simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) is right at the core of enabling collaboration, such that each agent can colocalize in and build a map of the workspace. The key challenges at the heart of this problem, however, lie with robust communication, efficient data management, and effective sharing of information among the agents. To this end, here we present CCM‐SLAM, a centralized collaborative SLAM framework for robotic agents, each equipped with a monocular camera, a communication unit, and a small processing board. With each agent able to run visual odometry onboard, CCM‐SLAM ensures their autonomy as individuals, while a central server with potentially bigger computational capacity enables their collaboration by collecting all their experiences, merging and optimizing their maps, or disseminating information back to them, where appropriate. An in‐depth analysis on benchmarking datasets addresses the scalability and the robustness of CCM‐SLAM to information loss and communication delays commonly occurring during real missions. This reveals that in the worst case of communication loss, collaboration is affected, but not the autonomy of the agents. Finally, the practicality of the proposed framework is demonstrated with real flights of three small aircraft equipped with different sensors and computational capabilities onboard and a standard laptop as the server, collaboratively estimating their poses and the scene on the fly.     

Reducing the complexity of visual navigation: Optical track controller for long‐range unmanned aerial vehicles

Using vision for navigation of airborne systems provides an opportunity for motion relative to the ground to be controlled in the absence of other supporting sensors including global navigation satellite systems. Rather than relying on computationally intensive localization techniques such as online map construction, identification and tracking of landmarks, or otherwise producing an explicit quantitative estimate of position, we propose and have experimentally demonstrated a closed‐loop visual navigation reflex which we term the optical ground course controller. The behavior is applicable to fixed wing aircraft traversing long ranges, and reduces the online computation and sensors required compared to other visual methods. This method combines the kinematics of fixed wing aircraft flight, the direction of apparent motion of an image sequence, and a magnetic compass to create a bioinspired optomotor reflex similar to those observed in insects. This behavior accurately controls track in the inertial reference frame (path taken over the ground) with only limited dependence on altitude, speed, and wind. We show that the proposed behavior is naturally convergent and stable, and present experimental results from simulation and real‐world flight demonstrating that the method performs robustly, producing improvement over both magnetic‐referenced and visual odometry‐based navigation within the limits of the sensor.     

Detection of aircraft below the horizon for vision‐based detect and avoid in unmanned aircraft systems

Vision‐based aircraft detection technology may provide a credible sensing option for automated detect and avoid in small‐to‐medium size fixed‐wing unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Reliable vision‐based aircraft detection has previously been demonstrated in sky‐region sensing environments. This paper describes a novel vision‐based system for detecting aircraft below the horizon in the presence of ground clutter. We examine the performance of our system on a data set of 63 near collision encounters we collected between a camera‐equipped manned aircraft and a below‐horizon target. In these 63 encounters, our system successfully detects all aircraft, at an average detection range of 1890 m (with a standard error of 43 m and no false alarms in 1.1 h). Furthermore, our system does not require access to inertial sensor data (which significantly reduces system cost) and operates at over 12 frames per second.     

Finite‐time formation tracking control for multiple vehicles: A motion planning approach

This paper addresses the finite‐time formation tracking problem for multiple vehicles with dynamics model on SE(3) (the specific Euclidean group of rigid body motions), under the condition that the tracking time is preassigned according to the task requirements. By using Pontryagin's maximum principle on Lie groups, a class of finite‐time optimal tracking control laws are designed for vehicles to track a desired trajectory within a given finite time. Meanwhile, the corresponding cost function is minimized. Furthermore, a tracking‐time lower bound is derived for multi‐vehicle systems with control constraints. Finally, an illustrative example is provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control laws. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Iterative technique for analysis and design of circular leaky‐wave antenna for the 2.45‐GHz radio‐frequency identification applications

This paper suggests a new miniaturized antenna for radio‐frequency identification (RFID) applications of 2.45 GHz. Our structure consists of a circular microstrip patch antenna which incorporates two concentric annular slots is printed on a multilayer substrates. The bandwidth, one of the most important characteristics of antenna, can be significantly improved by using a multilayer dielectric configuration. we aim by this study to show that the effect of radiating structure loaded by annular rings for the patch size reduction as well as the advantage of this structure being to create a circular polarisation in the direction of maximal radiation pattern. The wave concept iterative procedure is used to analyse this new antenna. Using the proposed procedure, less computing time and memory are needed to calculate the electromagnetic parameters of our design. The validation of the results of our developed model was verified with known commercial software called “CST Microwave Studio Software” followed by an experimental test. According to the reached results, we can judge that our new design antenna is suitable for RFID applications in the 2.45 GHz band.