Integración y automatización de un sistema de seguimiento de un uav para establecer un enlace de comunicación con una estación de monitoreo en tierra

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have become into professional equipment for several industries. Therefore, it has been necessary to add better communications and control systems in order to support the operation of the UAV and make them more reliable. LATITUDE AEROSPACE SOLUTIONS (LAS S.A) offers topography and cadastral services by using drones. These services demand that the drone can cover as much area as possible in a single flight. The UAVs available in the company have enough autonomy to cover this type of areas, but right now they are limited by the short range of the communication link between the UAV and the ground station. For this reason, the aim of this project is to improve the range of the communication link by implementing an automatic tracking system based on geolocation. This system can move continuously a directional antenna in order to track the UAV during its flight. This system is controlled by a Pixhawk autopilot and PID controllers designed through the direct synthesis method. Also, a video transmission link between the drone and the ground station is implemented by using the tracking system. The performance of the system is tested by using a fixed-wing drone in manual and autonomous flights.