Software for Drones, UAV, UGV, USV
Software manages a wide variety of aspects of the operations of unmanned systems and robotic vehicles, including UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and drones, USVs (unmanned surface vessels), UGVs (unmanned ground vehicles) and UUVs (unmanned underwater vehicles).
Software is used to analyze, process and enhance images captured by drone and unmanned vehicle camera payloads. Image processing software can be used to extract features from images for intelligence, or to create geospatial and photogrammetry products such as maps and 3D models.
Software is also used to process point cloud data captured by LiDAR scanners, as well as data from radar systems.
Flight & Mission Planning UAV Software
Mission planning and flight planning software can be used to lay out missions for drones and unmanned vehicles. This may allow waypoints to be selected for the vehicle to follow, or define survey corridors or areas. Flight planning drone software companies may also combine this data with fleet management software that allows drone enterprise organizations to keep track of vehicles, pilots and spare parts, creating an all-in-one solution.
Drone and unmanned vehicle ground control stations (GCS) may run a variety of types of software. In addition to flight planning and mapping, the stations may include ground control software that allows interaction with onboard payloads and environmental sensors, as well as basic processing of streamed or captured data.
Autonomous Software
Drones, UGVs and unmanned marine vessels may make use of AI (artificial intelligence) software such as deep learning algorithms, either via onboard computing platforms or cloud services. This may be used to carry out functions such as autonomous navigation, obstacle avoidance and image recognition.
UAV and unmanned systems operators and developers may make use of simulation software, which can give pilots practice at operating the vehicle without needing to use real hardware, or predict how the vehicle will react in real-world conditions for the purpose of improving and refining the design.