Development of a minimalistic low-cost UAV platform for simple airborne measurements

Abstract

For specific tasks in field phenotyping, e.g., georeferencing of new experimental plots for upcoming observations, there is the need of simple, often short-termed airborne measurements. For this scenario we developed a minimalistic low-cost UAV platform. This platform can be easily adapted to different sensor setups. Due to its price and simplicity it can be constructed multiple times and so be used simultaneously. A first version of our flexible UAV software framework (“SimpleUavAdapter”) is available and first test flights with simple measurements have been completed successfully. To further simplify the execution of GPS-triggered measurement tasks the development of a lightweight scheduling component (“FuRIOS client agent”) is planned.