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Design, Implementation, and Applications of Fully Autonomous Aerial Systems

Boubin, Jayson G
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4296-9624
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1656528287677176

Abstract Details

2022, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Computer Science and Engineering.
Fully autonomous aerial systems (FAAS) combine edge and cloud hardware with UAVs and considerable software support to create self-governing systems. FAAS complete complicated missions with no human piloting by sensing and responding to their environment in real-time. FAAS require highly complex designs to function properly, including layers of on-board, edge, and cloud hardware and software. FAAS also necessitate complex software used for controlling low-level UAV actions, data collection and management, image processing, machine learning, mission planning, and high-level decision-making which must integrate across the compute hierarchy effectively to meet autonomy goals in real-time. The complexity of even a relatively simple FAAS makes efficiency difficult to guarantee. Efficiency, however, is paramount to the effectiveness of a FAAS. FAAS perform missions in resource-scarce environments like natural disaster areas, crop fields, and remote infrastructure installations. These areas have limited access to computational resources, network connectivity, and power. Furthermore, UAV battery lives are short, with flight times rarely exceeding 30 minutes. If FAAS are inefficiently designed, UAV may waste precious battery life awaiting further instructions from remote compute resources, delaying or precluding mission completion. For this reason, it is imperative that FAAS designers carefully choose or design edge hardware configurations, machine learning models, autonomy policies, and deployment models. FAAS have the capability to revolutionize a number of industries, but much research must be done to facilitate their usability and effectiveness. In this dissertation, I outline my efforts toward designing and implementing FAAS that are efficient and effective. This dissertation will focus on the following five topics encompassing design, implementation, and applications of FAAS: §1. Creation of new general and domain-specific machine learning algorithms and careful utilization of others §2. Selection of hardware at all levels in the FAAS hierarchy §3. Power and environmental awareness informing selection and switching of autonomy policies, hardware devices, machine learning techniques and deployment characteristics. §4. Online learning capabilities resilient to limited cloud access, network interruption, and power scarcity. §5. Thorough applications which demonstrate the technological value of FAAS, drive adoption, and determine future research challenges.
Christopher Stewart (Advisor)
Sami Khanal (Committee Member)
Anish Arora (Committee Member)
199 p.
Computer Science
Autonomy, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Edge Computing

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Boubin, J. G. (2022). Design, Implementation, and Applications of Fully Autonomous Aerial Systems [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1656528287677176

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Boubin, Jayson. Design, Implementation, and Applications of Fully Autonomous Aerial Systems. 2022. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1656528287677176.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Boubin, Jayson. "Design, Implementation, and Applications of Fully Autonomous Aerial Systems." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1656528287677176

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1656528287677176
257
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This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.