Ground Control Station Software Research Articles

Optimal waypoint assignment for designing drone light show formations

Advancements in technology and new drone policies have boosted the adoption of drones by various industries. With active research and development, ingenious applications using drones are being developed. One such innovative and creative application of swarm drones is the drone light show. Light shows are generally performed outdoors in a dedicated clear open air space, which attracts the usage of drones for the execution. A fleet of multiple UAVs illuminates the night sky with picturesque performances in a synchronized manner. Use of drones in light shows provides an eco-friendly and reusable alternative for unique ways of advertisements, celebrations, storytelling, and entertainment. To choreograph the performance of swarm drones means allocating waypoints to each drone for every formation and the complexity of designing increases with the number of drones. An intelligent optimal assignment system is much required to allocate waypoints to drones for each transition in order to create formations. We propose a static swarm-intelligence-based assignment approach named Constrained Hungarian Method for Swarm Drones Assignment (CHungSDA) for optimally assigning multi-UAVs to waypoints. This approach uses Hungarian algorithm as a base with added constraints specific to the targeted application. Several simulations of the proposed approach — carried out for different designs have shown promising results. The work will be of best reference to the UAV manufacturers for their functional design of UAVs and development of Ground Control Station Software to communicate with multiple UAVs, along with other companies that aim to create visual illustrations using UAVs.

A Ground Control Station for the UAV Flight Simulator

Abstract In the paper implementation of a ground control station for UAV flight simulator is shown. The ground control station software is in cooperation with flight simulator, displaying various aircraft flight parameters. The software is programmed in C++ language and utilizes the windows forms for implementing graphical content. One of the main aims of the design of the application was to simplify the interface, simultaneously maintaining the functionality and the eligibility. A mission can be planned and monitored using the implemented map control supported by waypoint list.

Design and Optimization of a Heterogeneous Platform for multiple UAV use in Precision Agriculture Applications

Small Unmanned Autonomous Vehicles (UAV) are being used for several monitoring applications such as power line inspections, structural damages in buildings or farmland inspections. An individual UAV has limits in terms of weight, size and energy consumption for itself and for the sensors it carries. One way to mitigate this issue is to perform the aforementioned inspections using multiple vehicles cooperating to accomplish the missions (i.e. inspections) goal. From this new scenario many challenges arise, from the design time system development and optimization, to on-the-fly path (re)planning and they also include tool support development. This paper describes HIPAO, a model driven framework for system design, discusses the on-the-fly path (re)planning strategy and Droid Planner a ground control station software for UAV control and mission planning.