Construction of Land Base Station for UAV Maintenance Automation

This paper proposes a construction of a land-based base station for automated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) maintenance. The station is intended for UAV storage, protection from poor weather conditions, battery replacement and information transfer. UAV data transfer at the station allows to reduce UAV energy consumption in flight. The base station has two levels: the top one and the bottom one. The construction of base station allows to store UAVs with large dimensions, weighting up to 12 kg. The top level of the station consists of a retractable roof and meteo-sensors. The roof design provides for solar panel installation on it, what allows reducing base station energy consumption from batteries. Materials for the roof were chosen with intention to minimize roof weight and reduce load on drives. The bottom level of the base station contains the landing site, the battery replacement mechanism, the landing site lifting mechanism, the base station control system, as well the energy distribution system. The landing site features an ArUco-marker with backlight and includes mechanisms for UAV centering and fixation. The marker with backlight includes a plexiglass sheet, light emitting diodes (LEDs), a reflective substrate and an opaque scatterer. The outline lighting ensures marker detection in low light conditions. In cases, when the marker cannot be detected by active lighting, dependency of the required photosensitivity of the camera from the UAV flight altitude is presented.