Autonomous Recharging of Aerial Vehicles

Use of battery-powered unmanned aerial vehicles for recreational and commercial purposes has grown popular in recent years. Some companies have dedicated themselves to producing high-velocity racing UAV, high-altitude UAV for photography, and small UAV similar to RC airplanes. These companies, while focusing largely on recreational platforms, have created products capable of operating in many different environments to accomplish a variety of tasks remotely. Currently, these systems require a nearby human operator who is able to provide the maintenance, setup, and UAV battery substitutions needed for the particular application. Our research sought to implement a novel solution to the problem of limited UAV recharge autonomy - namely, an autonomous charging platform capable of executing both the controlled landing and subsequent wireless recharging of UAV without the need for a human operator.