Work being undertaken at the Lakeside Labs Austria has great potential, especially for search and rescue missions. Their recently released video which shows multiple air frames mapping an area whilst flying in formation.
The goal of the Lakeside Labs project team is to develop a platform for systems that involve multiple, collaborating aerial robots mainly for Search and Rescue misions but also for many other applications. The small-scale UAVs have sophisticated onboard controllers to achieve flight stability. They are equipped with an integrated GPS receiver, on-board sensors and embedded processing, and wireless communication capabilities, which allow them to collect and deliver real-time sensing data (such as still images) while flying over a certain area of interest.
The developed system has been tested in several scenarios and it proved to work well under realistic conditions
You just select area of interest, the included software optimizes flight routes for all of the three UAVs and then you just wait. The UAVs autonomously fly the computed routes and take pictures at certain possitions. From the captured images, which are showned immediately, the software makes a 3D model or a 2D stitched map. This almost real-time, wide-area coverage may be the new standard for search and rescue mussions.
In a natural disaster with a trained team this work could provide close to real time wide area imagery for gold commanders to make decisions more easily. The mapped area only getting bigger as flights continue. Rescue helicopters are generally stretched in times of emergency, let this system find people on roofs.
Lakeside Labs „Flying High – Multi-UAV Area Coverage“ video
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