OATS: Oxford Aerial Tracking System

Small robot helicopters are becoming a popular research platform due to the availability of off-the-shelf components and their suitability for useful applications. We describe the Oxford Aerial Tracking System (OATS) that we are commissioning, which takes a commercial airframe and low-level flight controller, and adapts these for use in applications requiring the visual tracking of ground targets. This uses a camera on a two-axis gimbal feeding images into an on-board processing system, which communicates summary information to a ground station. So far we have tested the system off the aircraft using laboratory targets and canned image sequences; we have also developed in simulation a variety of high-level algorithms for the platform, including those for target area scanning, geo-localisation, 3-D path planning, and target trajectory prediction; this paper focuses on the hardware, system software, and object tracking sub-systems. Testing on the airframe is now underway.