Principal Investigator Charles Oman
Co-investigator Andrew Liu
Flying an unmanned helicopter with an iPhone:
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as the military's Predator drone, currently require sophisticated and intensive training to operate. For example, an Air Force Predator UAV requires two full-time operators, both certified pilots who have attended a 10-week training course. Advances in UAV design have led to personal, micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) which can range in size from a fly to a basketball. MAVs are even more difficult to fly than their larger cousins due to a lack of conventional control surfaces like rudders and flaps. These MAVs are intended for use by soldiers or other highly trained first-responder personnel for real-time scouting and exploration. It is therefore impractical to demand the additional specialized training required to operate such a complex craft with a traditional joystick or remote control.
David Pitman's Master's thesis, Collaborative Micro Aerial Vehicle Exploration of Outdoor Environments, created and analyzed a controller, MAV-VUE, for flying these MAVs which uses an iPhone. MAV-VUE allows users to control a MAV via high-level waypoint commands, or through fine-grained nudge controls. This innovation, which can work on any hand-held device, can be extended to operate any type of robot such as a bomb disposal robot.