Target Detection, Tracking and Avoidance System for Low-cost UAVs using AI-Based Approaches
This addresses the problem of autonomous protection for low-cost UAVs in scenarios like delivery drones, but it is incremental as it combines existing tools.
The paper developed an onboard target detection, tracking, and avoidance system for low-cost UAVs using SSD for object detection and MAVSDK for velocity control, verified through SITL and HITL simulators to enable ally UAVs to avoid or track enemy UAVs with a net.
An onboard target detection, tracking and avoidance system has been developed in this paper, for low-cost UAV flight controllers using AI-Based approaches. The aim of the proposed system is that an ally UAV can either avoid or track an unexpected enemy UAV with a net to protect itself. In this point of view, a simple and robust target detection, tracking and avoidance system is designed. Two open-source tools were used for the aim: a state-of-the-art object detection technique called SSD and an API for MAVLink compatible systems called MAVSDK. The MAVSDK performs velocity control when a UAV is detected so that the manoeuvre is done simply and efficiently. The proposed system was verified with Software in the loop (SITL) and Hardware in the loop (HITL) simulators. The simplicity of this algorithm makes it innovative, and therefore it should be used in future applications needing robust performances with low-cost hardware such as delivery drone applications.