ISLANDS: A Self-Leveling landing platform for autonomous miniature UAVs

The Intelligent Self-Leveling and Nodal Docking System (ISLANDS) is a mobile recharging/refueling station designed and built to enhance endurance and range of small-scale, autonomous, unmanned helicopters, which are becoming increasingly popular for a wide range of non-military applications such as, surveillance, reconnaissance, traffic monitoring, emergency response, agricultural spraying, and many other "eye in the sky" missions. The primary function of ISLANDS is to provide a safe, level landing platform for such helicopters. Additionally, in order to provide the maximum benefit in terms of increased range and flight-time, ISLANDS must be strategically located in the work field of the helicopter. In this paper, we discuss both the design of the individual ISLANDS "node," and the use of ISLANDS within a larger systems context. At the node level, the mechanical subsystems implementing these ISLANDS are described. At the system level, we report on initial results tackling the ISLANDS placement problem with a genetic search algorithm. In combination, these contributions provide a complete solution to enable longer and more complex missions for small autonomous helicopters.