Drone Research
DireenTech is working with the US Air Force Academy’s Center for Unmanned Aerial Systems Research (ACUASR) in the area of using General Purpose Graphics Processing Units (GPGPU) in UAVs to provide fast autonomous target identification and GPS denied navigation. A further objective of research is to develop a general purpose UAV software platform designed to incorporate the GPGPU capabilities which makes it easy for researchers and cadets to rapidly prototype and generate software for UAV missions. The research includes the following:
GPGPU Enabled Target Identification
- Research, evaluate, optimize, and extend known image processing and computer vision algorithms to enable enhanced, autonomous, target identification techniques using GPGPUs.
- Perform autonomous target classification such as identifying cars, people, animals, buildings, and such within an image scene.
- Determine a target velocity information across multiple images relative to fixed features.
- Incorporate GPGPU image processing into the general purpose UAV soft- ware platform.
GPGPU GPS Denied Navigation
- Establish GPS Denied Navigation techniques using GPGPUs.
- Incorporate GPS Denied Navigation into the general purpose UAV soft- ware platform.
General Purpose UAV Software Framework
- Build a general purpose software framework for controlling UAVs in a wide range of ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) missions. The framework is designed to work on fixed wing and quadcopter/hexacopter style airframes.
- Research and develop a behavioral processing system to make it easily configurable for a wide range of missions.
ClientUnited States Air Force Academy
Center for Unmanned Aircraft SystemsCompletion2016LinkDrone Research ProjectResearchManaged Complexity in Embedded Control Systems for UAVs, Drones & Robotics