A Portable UAV Tracking System for Communications and Video Transmission

This work summarizes the development of an automatic tracking system for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) realized in cooperation with Latitude Aerospace Solutions (LAS). This system, in joint action with the use of directional antennas, allows increasing the range of communication (telemetry) between the UAV and its ground monitoring station. The tracking system is controlled through a Pixhawk autopilot in which the parameters of a PID controller, designed based on the direct synthesis method, are entered. Additionally, a long range video link is implemented from the drone to the ground monitoring station, which is useful, for example, for a video-surveillance system. Experimental results allow corroboration of the correct performance of the tracking system and the communication links.