Network-based control of UAVs in presence of packet dropouts and delays

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have been widely used nowadays as platforms to work in various environments. While they originated mostly in military applications, their use is rapidly expanding to commercial, scientific, agricultural, and other applications such as surveillance, delivery and infrastructure inspections. ??Many UAVs can be remotely controlled via network. When a goal is defined, path planning is the crucial element of the whole system. It's very important to ensure the proper behaviour of the UAV to prevent harm to citizens and other infrastructures. However, the wireless network is not always reliable, interference may happen due to large physical obstacles or other devices that emit an electro-magnetic signal. Safety measures must be carried out when the remote control is interrupted or lost. ??The objective of this project is to develop a network-based control system in C language that mimics the communication between the server on which the path is planned by A* algorithm on the grid map and client UAV which would receive control from the server, as well as dealing with network problems in the presence of both a short communication interrupt and a long one. The path planner is also installed on the UAV as a backup safety measure when the communication interrupt is too long for keeping in its original path. ??The test results are presented as the path under different circumstances on the grid map, and the performance of A* algorithm on different maps is also analysed.