UK Aerial Robotics Team

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PAX River Competition
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2006 AUVSI Student UAV Competition
Pax River Competition

• 4th Annual Association of Unmanned Vehicle
  Systems International Student UAV Competition.
• Hosted by the U.S. Navy Program Executive Office
  for Strike Weapons and Unmanned Aviation
• June 14th July 18th at Webster Field (NAS Pax
  River).

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Competition Details

• Teams are required to takeoff (manual or
  autonomous), fly specified waypoints, locate and
  identify targets on the ground, and return for
  landing within the allotted time.
• Mission criteria includes dynamic air vehicle
  control during autonomous flight, GPS waypoint
  navigation, target reconnaissance, ability to
  adjust to changing mission requirements.

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Competition Details (continued)

• Planes will have to fly within the altitudes of
  50 and 1000 ft.
• Targets to recognize
• 4x4 wooden targets of varying color.
• Specific Target information to be reported
  includes total number of targets in search area,
  the coordinates and orientation of each target.
• Teams will be given extra points for high
  resolution imagery.
• Total mission time is 40 minutes.

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Requirements
Develop a Control System and Aircraft

• Autonomous Flight Controller
• Communication Link
• Image Capture and Analysis
• Hardware
• Airframe and Propulsion System

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2006 Pax River Design
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Sig Kadet Senior ARF

• Wingspan 80.5 in.
• Length 64.75 in.
• Weight 6.5 lbs unloaded
• Engine 1.6 bhp Tower Hobbies .61

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Piccolo Avionics and Ground Station

• Key Features of Piccolo System
• Avionics - Small size 4.8 x 2.4 x 1.5, 233g.
• Highly integrated Includes sensors, GPS,
  enclosure, and communications link.
• Real-Time Data Logging.
• Manual piloting over the integrated UHF ground
  station link.
• End-user programmability, including RS-232 serial
  communications.
• Flexible drag and drop flight plan generation and
  updates.

Piccolo Avionics
Piccolo System Block Diagram
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Tiny Interface Module

• JTAG
• custom harness
• UART0
• Custom harness with level shifter
• UART1
• Custom harness with level shifter
• SPI
• 4-wire compatible
• Servo header ( X4)
• Standard Servo plug-in
• GPIO (X4)
• CAN (X2)
• Four pin header
• LED (X3)
• Power
• Status 0
• Status 1
• Push Button (X2)
• Reset

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Camera System

• Aiptek IS-DV digital camcorder
• Fixed lens camera
• NTSC video out
• 3MPixels
• Built-in SD Card Slot (Max. 1 GB)
• TXA5-Rcb 1W-70 cm transmitter _at_ 426.25MHz
• Dual-Axis Stabilizing System

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Photo Stitching Software

• NASA World Wind
• Open source software
• GUI to display end images with all required image
  data
• Embedded custom code to rotate and place images
  taken during flight

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UAV Plugin 1.1

• Code exists as a plugin (no more compilation
  required by the developer)
• Real-time modification of individual image
  parameters
• Coexists with WW images
• Support for pre-processing of images on pixel
  level (for histograms)

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UAV Plugin 1.1

• Uses the first two coefficients of a lens
  distortion model to quickly correct lens
  distortion
• Bilinear interpolation eliminates aliasing
  effects that cause image to look rough and blocky

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UAV Plugin 1.1