Development of an UAV for search & rescue applications

Abstract

In the event of a disaster, there is an impending need for robotic assistance in order to conduct an effective search and rescue operation, due to their immediate permissible deployment. In this paper, the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) intended for search and rescue applications is presented. The platform for the UAV is a quad-rotor type helicopter, simply referred to as a quadrotor. A plan for the mechatronic system integration was devised to combine the mechanical, electronic and software elements of the research. Once the system was modelled mathematically, a control strategy was implemented to achieve stability. This was investigated by creating a MATLAB <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> Simulink <sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">®</sup> numerical model, which was used to run simulations of the system.