Unmanned aerial vehicles for research in dynamics, guidance and control

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Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have made tremendous inroads in military applications, but their civilian uses are in their infancy. UAVs offer great potential in the surveillance and mapping of resources, civilian security surveillance, disaster mitigation and response, and monitoring of pipelines and remote installations. The co-applicants in this proposal are already involved in research on unmannaed aerial systems for surveiallance applications. The funds requested here would allow a dramatic expansion and rejuvenation of their existing UAV platforms. In particular, the money would be used to purchase an indoor quadrotor platform (Qball), a fixed-wind platform Cropcam and control and sensing hardware to upgrade the two unconventional existing airships. The research that would be undertaken with these vehicles includes guidance, control and planning of single and multi-UAV systems with platforms that have very different capabilities (speed, endurance, safety).