Introduction
The goal of FIRA Air – Outdoor Emergency Service competition is encouraging research teams to develop a robust and autonomous drone for commercial and industrial applications. While drones are widely used for aerial imaging, there are still lots of challenges to create an autonomous, reliable and secure solution. Most of these difficulties are related to localization and intelligent navigation in dynamic environments.
Nowadays, drones are used for carrying packages in well-defined conditions in rural areas. But doing the same task in an urban environment is a lot more challenging. Tall buildings and communication equipment in the urban environment cause electromagnetic interference which weakens satellite signals (GPS/GNSS) and leads to a great error in localization and navigation. In such situations, additional positioning method is required. Many drones already have an onboard camera, therefore using machine-vision for localization and visual servoing is feasible. A reliable aerial package delivery system in the urban environment should be able to detect obstacles and avoid any collision. Delivering a medicine package in emergency situations inside a high traffic area is a real-world application of aerial package delivery using drones.
Rules
