Linux-driver development for components of the UAV-based fawn detection system

Abstract

Every year, just in Germany around 100,000 roe deer fawns are killed by the harvesting machines during the mowing actions [22]. During the silage, the carcasses of those animals is accidentally mixed with the crop and given as fodder for the dairy cattle, producing them a paralytic illness. This fact harms the agrarian sector by causing huge economical losses. The German Aerospace Center (DLR) is developing several systems aimed to scan an area looking automatically for the fawns [18]. One of those methods is using an UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) based system that carries a computer-on-module with several sensors, including a thermal infrared camera, a RGB-camera and a laser-distance sensor. The main scope of this master thesis consists in developing the necessary drivers that enables the communication between the computer-on-module and: 1. the thermal-camera 2. the laser-distance sensor The communication is not direct. An interface that converts from UART to I2C connects the serial port of each sensor with the computer-on-module via I2C bus. The driver must manage the added interface and act like a bridge between the user and the sensors. An application for each sensor is also developed, in order to facilitate the user to control both devices.