ITC/USA 2012 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Eighth Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2012 / Town and Country Resort & Convention Center, San Diego, California / This paper describes the design and construction of a semi-autonomous quadrotor aircraft approximately 1 meter in diameter. Because of the mechanical simplicity of the aircraft, the design challenges primarily centered on the electrical and computer engineering (ECE) tasks, and was used as a capstone design experience in an undergraduate ECE program. An onboard microcontroller based system uses a network of digital sensors and differential thrust for autonomous attitude control. A wireless telemetry and command link allows a user to monitor the vehicle, control its direction of flight, and for flight safety control.

In this work, research to develop algorithms for a package exchange maneuver between two quad-rotor aircraft is presented. First, the development of tools used for this research is discussed. Second, a controller is designed that synchronizes the flight paths and motion of two quad-rotor robots. The controller is used to guide a designated follower quad-rotor to follow a leader aircraft’s position and orientation. The follower aircraft is equipped with a simple mechanical manipulator to compensate for limitations in the aircrafts maneuverability. finally, a sensor architecture study for relative navigation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is presented. The architecture study presents typical navigation solutions, considers each solution’s appropriateness for close-proximity missions, and compares performance.