Drone: Experiencing the Next Dimension

Our Drone in real-lifeOur newest addition to the rover is our drone. The main goal of the drone is to take pictures from places the rover can’t get to, such as the top of a volcano or similar places. Furthermore, it must fly completely autonomous, which includes starting and landing from the rover.Basic 3D Model of our droneSince it is not allowed to use GPS to determine its location, we’ve chosen a different approach to locate our drone on the mars-yard. We’ve decided to use the AR-tags, which are provided by the organizer of the ERC. AR-tags are typically square-shaped patterns with black borders and encoded data in the form of contrasting black and white cells within the pattern. These tags are designed to be easily recognizable and trackable by computer vision algorithms. To recognize them, our drone is equipped with a camera and an additional computer. This computer calculates…