Frankfurt University publishes manual with AI drone construction guides

Scientists at the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences (Frankfurt UAS) have published a manual in German and English as part of their research and teaching activities in the field of drones with artificial intelligence (AI). In the manual, the researchers describe technical fundamentals and provide construction guides for AI drones. The manual is open source and available for download on GitHub.

The manual is intended for beginners in the world of AI drones and therefore does not claim to be exhaustive. Nevertheless, the manual is to be continuously developed to remain up-to-date, which is the goal of the project.

The book covers a variety of topics important for building AI drones. For example, it discusses the correct selection of hardware components such as sensors. Other topics include software, object recognition, autonomous navigation, and automatic object tracking. The purchase costs and thus the economic viability are also taken into account.

In addition, the construction guides are designed so that the drones are robust and can be adapted to different application scenarios. The focus is on object and animal recognition, environmental monitoring, and inspection and logistics tasks.

Practice-oriented construction guides

The manual is based on the collective experience gained in teaching courses and in the research project "AI-supported drone platforms". Student theses on the topic have also been incorporated. The manual is practice-oriented to enable concrete AI drone projects.

The researchers involved, including Christian Baun, professor and head of the Master's program in General Computer Science, are making the manual available under an open-source license. Free access is via GitHub.

(olb)