Visibility maximization with unmanned aerial vehicles in complex environments
Name
712589745-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
27.47 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
438f36d48e56497b2a5ceeb3cddd6fee
Author(s)
Lee, Kenneth (Kenneth King Ho)
Advisor(s)
Jonathan P. How.
Date Issued
2010
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Unmanned aerial vehicles are used extensively in persistent surveillance, search and track, border patrol, and environment monitoring applications. Each of these applications requires the obtainment of information using a dynamic observer equipped with a constrained sensor. Information can only be gained when visibility exists between the sensor and a number of targets in a cluttered environment. Maximizing visibility is therefore essential for acquiring as much information about targets as possible, to subsequently enable informed decision making. Proposed is an algorithm that can design a maximum visibility path given models of the vehicle, target, sensor, environment, and visibility. An approximate visibility, finite-horizon dynamic programming approach is used to find flyable, maximum visibility paths. This algorithm is compared against a state-of-the-art optimal control solver for validation. Complex scenarios involving multiple stationary or moving targets are considered, leading to loiter patterns or pursuit paths which negotiate planar, three-dimensional, or elevation environment models. Robustness to disturbances is addressed by treating targets as regions instead of points, to improve visibility performance in the presence of uncertainty. A testbed implementation validates the algorithm in a hardware setting with a quadrotor observer, multiple moving ground vehicle targets, and an urban-like setting providing occlusions to visibility.
Description
Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2010.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-164).
Subjects
Aeronautics and Astronautics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics
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