1. Towards Establishing and Maintaining Autonomous Quadrotor Formations Audrow J. Nash William Lee College of Engineering University of North Carolina at Charlotte Email: anash13@uncc.edu

2. Table of Contents 1.Introduction 2.Motivation 3.Research

3. What is a Quadrotor? Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Four (quad) rotating propellers (rotor) Quadrotors have the ability to take off and land vertically

4. Quadrotor Applications 1.Carrying Payload 2.Surveillance

5. Why Swarm? We work together to accomplish more than we could alone http://otrazhenie.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/teamwork5.jpg

6. http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004

7. http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/

8. Quadrotor Swarm Applications 1.Carry Payload Moving objects Product delivery o Amazon o Africa o New York Build simple structures 2. Surveillance Disaster relief Building inspection Media Law enforcement Environmental And many more applications.

9. Current Research http://defensetech.org/

11. More information University of Pennsylvania: www.grasp.upenn.eduwww.grasp.upenn.edu ETH Zürich: www.idsc.ethz.ch/Research_DAndreawww.idsc.ethz.ch/Research_DAndrea

12. How does it work? 1.Infrared light reflects off quadrotors 2.Camera connected to computer analyzes 3.Instruction is wirelessly sent to quadrotor http://images.gizmag.com/hero/nanoquadrotors-2.jpg

13. Existing Research Decentralized control Brains are outsourced Unable to operate in real world http://vortex.accuweather.com/adc2004 http:// environment.nationalgeographic.com / Current research has limitations for solving real world problems

14. Research Goal Develop an autonomous platform to have centralized control o Design quadrotor o Create and implement behavior algorithm

15. Quadrotor Platform

17. Flight system Purchased Handles stable flight with feedback from Inertial Measurement Unit http:// www.rctimer.com/index.php?gOo=goodspic.dwt&goodsid=765 All In One Pro V2.0

18. Quadrotor Platform

19. Wii Camera Extracted from Nintendo Wii controller Combined with infrared pass filter Tracks the four highest intensity infrared sources

20. Quadrotor Platform

21. Reference Beacon Composed of 4 infrared lights o Saturate camera capabilities B1, B2, B3 are for localization B4 reduces noise

22. Quadrotor Platform

23. Vision Processor Receives data from Wii camera Outputs movement command to flight system https://cdn.sparkfun.com//assets/parts/7/5/6/0/11575-01.jpg Red Board

24. Vision algorithm

25. Vision Code void loop() { if (IsLookingAtBeacon()) SendMovementCommand(); else Hover(); }

26. When Non Orthogonal Begins by flying to correct altitude Moves in front of beacon by comparing light source position

27. When Orthogonal

28. Characterizing Vision System Quadrotor distance from beacon (Inches) Amount of pixels between outer lights sources Data measured

29. Characterizing Vision System: Math Created and solved equations straight line approximations to determine quadrotor distance from reference beacon

30. Characterization Results

31. It was observed that the algorithm can direct a body to a position reliably with respect to the beacon void loop() { if (IsLookingAtBeacon()) SendMovementCommand(); else Hover(); }

32. Testing: Beacon Configuration Results: Use directional nature of lights Increased filtering

33. Testing: Environmental Lighting Impact Result: Indoor lighting conditions have no noticeable effect on vision system

34. Conclusion Benefits of full autonomy Created, implemented, and tested an autonomous system

35. Future Work Create autonomous test environment Achieve autonomous flight Implement swarm algorithm

36. Thank you! Audrow J. Nash University of North Carolina at Charlotte Charlotte, North Carolina 28223 Email: anash13@uncc.edu