Abstract

The ability to gather and process information regarding the condition of forest fires is essential to cost-effective, safe, and efficient fire fighting. Advances in sensory and autopilot technology have made miniature unmanned aerial systems (UASs) an important tool in the acquisition of information. This thesis addresses some of the challenges faced when employing UASs for forest-fire perimeter surveillance; namely, perimeter tracking, cooperative perimeter surveillance, and path planning. Solutions to the first two issues are presented and a method for understanding path planning within the context of a forest-fire environment is demonstrated. Both simulation and hardware results are provided for each solution.

Degree

MS

College and Department

Ira A. Fulton College of Engineering and Technology; Electrical and Computer Engineering

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2007-06-21

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd1894

Keywords

augmented proportional navigation guidance, autonomous vehicle, BYU, cooperative control, coordination variables, distributed control, flight tests, forest fire monitoring, hardware results, inverse problems, perimeter surveillance, perimeter tracking, proportional navigation, road following, suitability, UAS, vision-based flight, visual servoing

Language

English

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