Study on key technologies for air–water surface collaboration of observation unmanned aircraft vehicle

Abstract

To address the issues of short flight duration and the inability to carry high-computation resources in small observation unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) due to limited energy and payload capacities, this paper proposes a deployment framework for an air–water surface collaborative observation system based on energy-replenishment and computation offloading. In this framework, UAVs serve as platforms for observation tools, while unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) function as platforms for energy replenishment and edge computing nodes. The edge computing nodes are capable of processing, analyzing, and distributing observation data received from the UAVs. UAVs can perform coordinated landing and recharging on the USVs using high-precision BeiDou positioning. Experimental results indicate that the application of this framework allows small observation UAVs to avoid the burden of carrying heavy computational loads during flight and enables cyclic recharging and operation using the USV platform. The findings of this study have broad applicability in various scenarios, including environmental monitoring, disaster patrol, marine mapping, and marine aquaculture.