Drones are gaining more and more popularity in today’s world and not just for recreational use. The small size and ease of use of micro air vehicles (MAVs) make them ideally suitable in aerial reconnaissance, search and rescue and post-disaster area exploration.
MAVs
The International Micro Air Vehicle (IMAV) conference hosts a yearly technological competition focusing on MAVs.
The 2014 competition, held in Delft, the Netherlands invited research teams from countries across the world to compete in a search and rescue mission in a post-disaster village using MAVs. The competition featured obstacles like the following:
- Map stitching and route planning using aerial photography
- Navigation in a enclosed two-story building
- Identification of various objects using computer vision
- Precision flight navigation
The team from the National University of Singapore won the championship with their quadrotors outfitted with a Gumstix Overo Fire to implement algorithms such as sensor fusion, servo driving, and automatic control. Read more about their work here.
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