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A Ground Control Station for a Multi-UAV Surveillance System

Design and Validation in Field Experiments

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Abstract

This paper presents the ground control station developed for a platform composed by multiple unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance missions. The software application is fully based on open source libraries and it has been designed as a robust and decentralized system. It allows the operator to dynamically allocate different tasks to the UAVs and to show their operational information in a 3D realistic environment in real time. The ground control station has been designed to assist the operator in the challenging task of managing a system with multiple UAVs, trying to reduce his workload. The multi-UAV surveillance system has been demonstrated in field experiments using two quadrotors equipped with visual cameras.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Grupo de Robotica, Vision y Control, Universidad de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

    Daniel Perez, Ivan Maza, Fernando Caballero & Anibal Ollero

  2. Boeing Research & Technology Europe, Avenida Sur del Aeropuerto de Barajas 38 Bldg 4, Madrid, 28042, Spain

    David Scarlatti & Enrique Casado

  3. Center for Advanced Aerospace Technology (CATEC), Parque Tecnológico y Aeronáutico de Andalucía, La Rinconada, Spain

    Anibal Ollero

Authors
  1. Daniel Perez
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  2. Ivan Maza
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  3. Fernando Caballero
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  4. David Scarlatti
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  5. Enrique Casado
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  6. Anibal Ollero
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Correspondence to Ivan Maza.

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Perez, D., Maza, I., Caballero, F. et al. A Ground Control Station for a Multi-UAV Surveillance System. J Intell Robot Syst 69, 119–130 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-012-9759-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-012-9759-5

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