Design and Development of a Semi-autonomous Fixed-Wing Aircraft with Real-time Video Feed

In recent years, the understanding and development of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) has grown exponentially. With technological advancements in the fields of integrated circuits and battery polymers it is now possible to produce UAS that can provide benefits far outside their initial military purposes. Despite this, there are still very few developed UAS that can exploit such technological advancements. Several large scale vehicles (>4 m) utilize gas propeller-driven systems, which enables long endurance flights and applications of reconnaissance, surveying, and high altitude sensor testing. Unfortunately, these are exponentially expensive to purchase, maintain, and operate. On the other hand, there are mini-UAS (m-UAS) in production; most of them are focused on copter designs for study of stabilization and path planning software. m-UAS are a viable option for low endurance, altitude, and payload objectives due to battery limitations and constant adjustment of thrust for directional stabilization and maneuvering. The research presented here focus on the design and development of a fixed-wing aircraft that serves as a viable option between UAS and m-UAS platforms, with the purpose of merging the strengths of both systems into a low-cost, high versatility vehicle. The proposed UAS considers low-level autopilot capabilities for stabilized flight, with a minimum flight time of 60 min and 60 Km distance. Additionally, a 3-axis gimbal stabilized camera system is designed and implemented to produce steady video stream to a ground control station.