Flying robots (drones) are versatile tools with a quickly growing popularity. They have proved their potential in a wide selection of application fields from aerial filming through unique aerial monitoring tasks to even drone actuator applications for several industries. The artificial intelligence of drones has gone through a tremendous development in the last few years. A remaining bottleneck of widespread adoption is the need for experienced technical staff during missions and the currently low level of automation. With a decade of research background connected to the collective intelligence of flying robots and with an ever growing fleet of autonomous drones, we will create a fully automated remote workstation and a related teleoperation software framework for flying robots to allow systematic drone operations without the need for direct human contorl.
The basis of our drone workstation is an intelligent docking device that can be installed at remove working areas (construction sites, protected objects, precision agricultural fields, natural parks, solar or wind power fields). The docking station can be operated interactively or can be programmed for systematic missions through the net. The station takes into account all environmental, weather, airspace conditions and coordinates the required aerial monitoring tasks on its own. During flight the system provides real-time monitoring data. After the mission the drone lands on the station automatically, uploads the collected data to a server for post-processing, and prepares itself for the next mission by recharging itself.
We provide a versatile server-client software framework for the operation of the workstation that allows for remote programming, teleoperation, but also provides real-time flight monitoring and the possibility for full human control in case it is needed. Compared to the popular ground station softwares available on the market (e.g. DJI GO, Mission Planner, UGCS) that typically need local communication with the drone through a single mobile or desktop client, our system provides access to drone control and monitoring from any number of clients simultaneously, with customizable appearance and permissions in a platform independent manner. Moreover, it will allow for the parallel control of multiple drones, achieving the maximal safety level possible in drone swarm operations.
During the project we create a prototype and demonstrate its capabilities in a real use-case. We plan to release the prototype commercially right after the project in a product-as-a-service scheme first. Using the experience from the first set of users we will create an updated version of the system in the long term as a standalone product to sell. We believe that the key for future robotic services is artificial intelligence, high level of automation and minimization of the technical requirements from the users’ perspective. This can be enhanced further by scaling, i.e. the parallel operation of multiple robotic units with collective intelligence. Our goal with the docking station is to create a customizable service and product that is valuable enough to enter the international market, connects future technologies with sustainable, low-energy user requirements and demonstrate its potential in a wide range of applications.
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