Browsing by Author "Lock, Jacobus C."
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemPose error estimation of a quadcopter in the outdoors(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2016-03) Lock, Jacobus C.; Smit, W. J.; Treurnicht, J.; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Engineering. Dept. of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering.ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The quadcopter industry is a fast-growing and maturing industry which pro- duces `dumb' (or manually controlled) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). They are also commonly equipped with controllers which make them able to au- tonomously carry out a ight mission without a human pilot. Industry is becoming increasingly interested in integrating quadcopters into their respec- tive workforces in an attempt to automate some processes. However, national governments are worried that if left unregulated, UAV quadcopters may pose a safety and security threat to society, particularly if they are to work au- tonomously in the outdoors. There are a number of improvements that can be made to increase the safety of quadcopters. This research project investigates how well quadcopters can estimate their position and orientation, or pose. If this is known, it can be integrated into a control model as an error term to improve the performance and safety rating of a quadcopter. Indoor measurement tools cannot be used, since the quadcopters of interest rely on GPS data. Therefore, a computer vision-based pose measurement system (CVS) was investigated, designed and implemented to measure the pose of a quadcopter in the outdoors. The system's measurements were compared to a quadcopter's pose estimates recorded during an outdoor test ight. The results show that the CVS's measurements are more accurate than the quadcopter's in all the dimensions except for the yaw. It was found that the quadcopter's position estimation error is approximately 150mm for x, y and z, and 3.27° and 1.9° for the roll and pitch dimensions. These results can be used and integrated into a quadcopter's control model.