Development of a Robotic Helicopter for Monitoring Pollution and Habitat in Estuaries

This paper describes the development of an robotic helicopter for monitoring pollution and habitat in natural reserves. The particular environment under investigation is Tijuana River Estuary (TRE) south of the city of San Diego on the US-Mexico border. The ecology of TRE is briefly reviewed and the motivation for using an robotic helicopter is discussed. Next the application of aerial imaging to natural reserves is mentioned. An overview of the helicopter and its autonomy is given. The autonomous flight and capturing of images tagged with GPS and attitude are described. A method is presented to correct (rectify) aerial images that are distorted due to helicopter rolling and pitching leading to non-vertical photography. Flight test results are also provided.