AUTONOMOUS GROUND RECONNAISSANCE DRONE USING ROBOT OPERATING SYSTEM (ROS)

Abstract

The Arizona Autonomous Club is a student organization at the University of Arizona which designs, builds, and competes with Unmanned Air Systems (UAS). This year, a 25% scale Xtreme Decathlon model aircraft was selected and successfully converted into a fully autonomous UAS for the AUVSI Student Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) 2017 competition. The UAS utilizes a Pixhawk autopilot unit, which is an independent, open-hardware project aiming at providing high-end autopilot hardware at low costs and high availability. The Pixhawk runs an efficient real time operating system (RTOS) and includes sensors such as a GPS unit, IMUs, airspeed, etc. The UAS also includes an onboard imaging system, which is controlled by an onboard computer (OBC). The Pixhawk and OBC are interconnected with two ground control stations (GCS) using the Robot Operating System (ROS) framework, which is capable of extending overall system capabilities to include an expanded telemetry downlink, obstacle avoidance, and manual overrides.