Open Source Autonomous Miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (OSAM-UAV) Team’s System Design & Development for the 2009 AUVSI Student UAS Competition

This paper contains a description of the Open Source Autonomous Miniature Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (OSAM-UAV) Team’s System Design and Development for the 2009 Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) Student Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) Competition. A detailed description is given of the system design along with design rationale including the team’s objectives in building the system. The system is divided into two parts - the airborne system and the ground control station (GCS). The communication between these two systems is provided by three data links. The airborne system is described with its subsystems: the airframe, the autopilot, and the sensors including the UAV imagery payload. The GCS is described including the GCS Software and the imagery control station. The data links that provide communication between the two systems are described. The paper is concluded with system testing and results