December 24, 2003
Neat Helicopter UAV
Here is an interesting little UAV based on a model helicopter. It appears that they have a very nice sensor suite on it, and are using that for some vision processing.
Autonomous helicopter flight is characterised by helicopters that can fly without a human pilot or guidance from a remote-controlled device. Although many teams worldwide have been working on so-called vertical take-off, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), the CSIRO helicopter is the first to fly completely independent of expensive global positioning systems (GPS) guidance. Instead it uses its brain to control its balance and orientation.
"While GPS may seem like an ideal technique to use, it has many drawbacks in practice, particularly in built environments near large structures which can obscure or reflect signals from the GPS satellites," team leader, Dr Peter Corke told ABC Science Online.
I take exception to the statement that GPS is expensive. You can now get a full up GPS sensor for $80. It does go higher for differential, but these guys are spending a boat-load on their other sensors and vision processing. Still, a neat project.
Posted by elkaim at December 24, 2003 4:08 PM