Hexacopter-Based Modern Remote Sensing Using the YOLO Algorithm

Abstract

Remote sensing technology is essential to various industries such as agriculture, meteorology, surveillance, defence, manufacturing and processing industries. Several sectors widely adopt this technology, so much research has been conducted in this domain. In satellite applications, research in remote sensing has been performed for seven decades. Images and videos captured by satellites have less resolution, which undoubtedly reduces object detection and data analysis accuracy. After analysis, the imprecise nature of captured data might cause difficulties in fields such as defence and agriculture. To combat this problem, in this research, we developed a hexacopter-based modern remote sensing device that can fly with manual intervention and also has an emergency autopilot function. The proposed system is equipped with a compact high-resolution camera which captures images with a higher frame rate. The developed system uses the YOLO v4 algorithm, which is fast and accurate to recognise and track an item or a particular individual in real time. Logged data is shared with the ground station to perform the desired task. The hexacopter-based system has more mobility than the satellite-based system, which overcomes the drawback of the limited range of the proposed system. In this proposed system, we have connected a precise flight controller and a Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ microprocessor board with other electronic components to more accurately control hexacopter flying and real-time object identification and tracking.