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Browsing AFA - DA - ACPA - Trabalhos Finais de Mestrado by Author "Alves, João Filipe Gomes Moreira"
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- Software architecture for low-cost UAVs: an application considering automatic target tracking mission scenariosPublication . Alves, João Filipe Gomes MoreiraIn recent years, advances in different technological areas enabled the development of low-cost, yet efficient Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) for a broad spectrum of applications. The Air Force Academy Research Centre (CIAFA) is currently exploring new open-source software/hardware options, allowing for rapid prototyping and flight testing of control algorithms for UAVs. This thesis aims the development of a software architecture based on the hardware developed by Silva et al. (2020), considering open-source software tools, available in the scientific community. Once the software architecture is outlined, an autonomous ground target tracking mission is considered, thus illustrating the effectiveness of the proposed solution. In order to achieve the thesis' objectives, a literature review is carried out. First, a brief review of the hardware architecture from Silva et al. (2020) is presented, outlining the software constraints for each hardware component. Then, a review of the different available software components mostly used by the academic community is performed. Afterwards, the hardware/software architecture is proposed, detailing the software tools chosen to develop the CIAFA's software architecture. In particular, the proposed software architecture is comprised of five separate software modules: Control and Guidance, Target Estimate, Target Geolocation, Target Detector and Video Acquisition. Each module is validated independently, followed by a closed-loop control system validation. This simulation aims to reproduce the target tracking mission proposed in this research. Results show that using the proposed architecture for the closed-loop control system, a fixed-wing UAV is able to autonomously detect, estimate and follow a ground target with good performance.