UIQuad I: A Low-cost and Modular Surveillance Quadcopter

Abstract

The paper presents the development of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) quadcopter, capable of both manual and autonomous flight modes, fitted with a camera to provide pictorial and video footage of any selected environment. The prototype of the quadcopter was built with an Ardupilot (APM) 2.8 flight controller which in-corporates a microcontroller in addition to an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). In its autonomous mode, an open source Ardupilot Mission Planner software was used for the control of the quadcopter. Flight missions with a specified paths, altitudes and speeds were tested and stable flight operations with no human input were achieved. This surveillance quadcopter can be used as it is or scaled up or down to suit agricultural, humanitarian, government, and industrial applications.