Cave Drones for Autonomous Exploration In GPS Denied Environments

Research sponsored by the Micro Air Vehicle (MAV) Lab at the University of Arizona.

'Follower' is currently the main working folder. It contains code for the follower drones; the Python script enables the drones to navigate to waypoints that are already pre-programmed or sent in real time via UDP. The MATLAB code enables visualization of recorded telemetry logs; basically, after the drones has been flown, we can re-create it's path using recorded 'local_position_NED" MAVLINK messages stored in the telemetry files that QGroudncontrol saves.

'Beacon' contains code to turn an ESP32 microcontroller into a WiFi bridge, theoretically enabling ESP32 devices to be used as telemtry repeaters throughout the flight of the drones. This is a WIP.

'Exports' contains collected data including video and telemetry. This data is used to post-flight analysis.

'References' contains academic papers on the topic that may be useful.

Please email [email protected] for questions about code OR usage.