Visually-Guided Counter-sUAS Aerial Vehicle: Flight Results

摘要

To address the growing problem of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) entering an airspace without authorization over a public event, building, or other protected spaces (whether for recreational purposes or with malicious intent), we are developing a low-cost, aerial intercept vehicle that autonomously pursues a targeted sUAS and launches an entanglement device to bring it to the ground. We present two different configurations of an intercept vehicle based on a small quadcopter that is guided by a visible-light camera to the target sUAS. In this paper, inspired by animal models such as the echolocating bat and the dragonfly, we describe the problem constraints, system design, visual processing and guidance algorithms, our two physical implementations, and the results of several aerial intercept flights.