Honors Theses
Date of Award
Spring 5-9-2026
Document Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Department
Computer and Information Science
First Advisor
Charles Walter
Second Advisor
Joseph Carlisle
Third Advisor
Michelle Hanlon
Relational Format
Dissertation/Thesis
Abstract
The coordination between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs) holds significant potential for completing complex tasks such as disaster response and construction surveillance by leveraging the strengths of aerial flight and stable on-ground transportation. Unfortunately, coordination between UAVs and UGVs is extremely complex and task-dependent, leading to limited understanding of autonomous collaboration. This thesis explores the process of designing an UAV-UGV collaborative system capable of aerially scouting a target destination, relaying its coordinates to a ground vehicle, and performing a precision landing for unison travel. I utilize computer vision techniques via OpenCV for target marker identification, ROS 2 (Robotic Operating System) for sensor data publishing and retrieval, and the Python API Drone-Kit, alongside MAVROS, for crafting autonomous flight and mission logic. Before hardware integration, I verify the efficiency of my software design through simulation with the Gazebo simulation software and ArduPilot SITL (Software-in-the-loop) simulation framework. Upon completion of the software development process, I transitioned to deploying my mission logic onto the hardware of both a UAV and a UGV for the RTX Autonomous Drone Challenge.
Recommended Citation
Reysen, Ember, "Designing a Collaborative UAV-UGV System for Autonomous Challenge Completion" (2026). Honors Theses. 3583.
https://egrove.olemiss.edu/hon_thesis/3583
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.