Low-cost Multi-UAV Technologies for Contour Mapping of Nuclear Radiation Field

Low cost UAVs are becoming more and more popular in both research and practical applications, and it leads to a new, potentially significant service product known as UAV-based personal remote sensing (PRS). Multi-UAV system with advanced cooperative control algorithms has advantages over single UAV system, especially in time urgent tasks such as detecting nuclear radiation before deploying the salvage. This paper considers two scenarios for nuclear radiation detection using multiple UAVs, of which contour mapping of the nuclear radiation is simulated. Then, for real applications, this paper presents a low-cost UAV platform with built-in formation J.L. Han (B) · Y.Q. Chen CSOIS, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah 84322-4120, USA e-mail: [email protected] Y.Q. Chen e-mail: [email protected] Y.J. Xu School of Automation, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China e-mail: [email protected] L. Di Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, USA e-mail: [email protected] flight control architecture together with a formulated standard flight test routine. Three experimental formation flight scenarios that imitate the nuclear detection missions are prepared for contour mapping of nuclear radiation field in 3D space.