Increasing Small Unmanned Aerial System Real-Time Autonomy

The ability to collect and assess different types of data from Unmanned Aerial Systems in real-time or near real-time is still a difficult challenge. Issues faced can include significant computation times, signal strength and wireless transmission delays or limitations, open source software versus proprietary data, etc. To attempt to remedy such issues, we aim for achieving on-board capabilities for automatic object detection, image analysis, and adaptable situational assessment. The result is real-time comparison between flights as well as preliminary data assessment using techniques from topological data analysis.