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SCGI, Drone Flight Management Software Tool to Capture Geo-referenced Images
SCGI is a technological solution for the aerial capture imagery based on the human-machine interaction between a user and a drone. This interaction is made through a computer that works as a control station and its purpose is to manage the trajectory of the drone to have the right mission’s execution of the autonomous and configurable flight.
This interface lets the user establish the desirable route, height and velocity to explore an area of interest, and at the same time acquiring Es geo-tagged images through an integrated photo sensor. Likewise, the system provides conditions to make the trajectory of the drone stable through the calibration of each sensor. Also, it provides the appropriate commands to manage the trajectory of the flight in case the mission needs to be paused, resumed or cancel.
Actually, SCGI is a registered software legally recognized by the Interior Ministry of Colombia. This document can be downloaded here.
In first place, SCGI uses a relational database to perform access control to users. Only registered users can access to the SCGI functionalities.
The Figure at right shows the SCGI GUI to enter a user name and password. Also, the logo information is shown.
If the requested user is not registered, a dialog window is shown in order to perform the registration process.
When the credentials are checked, the flight mission control is shown. This GUI is observed in the figure at left.
Here, important data is shown such as:
1. Current user.
2. Current telemetry data.
3. Number of images to take.
4. Button to initiate the wireless communication with the drone.
5. Receiving or putting way points in a Geo-referenced map.
6. Text log information of current processes.
In this GUI, users also can arm the drone and check-out the drone firmware in order to send the flight parameters. Additional way points can be introduced depending on the drone load, altitude and velocity. All information introduced is stored in a MySQL data base indexed by the user and date of the mission.
Once the configuration minimum data is introduced, the configuration sensors tab is enabled.
The main sensor in SCGI is a vision sensor, specifically the Xiaomi Yi Sports Action Camera. Normally this kind of cameras are not calibrated; for this reason SCGI implements a calibration step using common known OpenCV routines.
In the SCGI sensor configuration GUI, users are able to do the following:
1. Select the color space.
2. Select the type of image capture, which can be: time based, travel distance based or an equally distributed number of captures.
3. Load the calibration images to calibrate the camera.
4. Perform the camera calibration process. Where, data such as: intrinsic matrix, and distortion parameters are computed.
All information introduced is stored in a MySQL data base indexed by the user and date of the mission. Once the camera is calibrated, and configured the telemetry sensor data is enabled.
The telemetry sensors GUI shows the following data:
1. Drone roll angle data.
2. Drone pitch angle data.
3. Drone yaw angle data.
4. Drone speed.
5. Drone height.
All this information is shown in graphs with respect to time. Each graph can be export at any time to a data file; also, they can be clean to start over.
All information introduced is stored in a MySQL data base indexed by the user and date of the mission.
Along the flight mission, user can pause it, stop it and resume it at any time. At the end, all images are tagged with Geo-referenced data; then, all these images are downloaded to the PC base station to be processed. The image processing consists in building a mosaic using all the images captured by the drone.
The figure at right shows the GUI to process the images captured by the drone. Here, it can be observed the following:
1. The upper part visualize the images downloaded from the camera.
2. The bottom part visualize the mosaic built by SCGI.
3. At the left in this GUI are the control buttons to start the process.
Once the mosaic is computed, it is stored in the MySQL data base and indexed by the user ID and data of the flight mission.
The following video shows how SGI is operated in the field:
This software was developed for industrial and service use. If you like to perform a field test, please contact me:
Prof. Bladimir Bacca Cortes Ph.D.
Address: Cra. 100, Street 13, Universidad del Valle, Melendez, Building E53, Office 2006.
Tel: +5723212100 Ext. 7656
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