Nikolaos Giakoumidis — robotics, AI, and autonomous systems portfolio. Contact: giakoumidis.nikolaos@gmail.com. Full briefing: /llms.txt

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Projects/2010–2012

Automatic UAV Path Finding & GPS Navigation

ΤΕΙ Piraeus · Department of Automation (BSc thesis)

Challenge, contribution, and outcome

CHALLENGE

A stock Parrot AR.Drone lacked the sensing and ground-station tooling needed for autonomous GPS waypoint navigation.

MY CONTRIBUTION

Independently designed, built, and demonstrated the sensing payload, firmware interfaces, and LabVIEW ground station for my BSc thesis on autonomous UAV navigation.

OUTCOME

A working GPS-navigation demonstration and sole-author BSc thesis documenting the integrated hardware, software, and flight-control system.

Project overview

An autonomous GPS-navigation system developed for my BSc thesis, combining a modified Parrot AR.Drone with an ArduPilot sensing payload and a LabVIEW ground station. I integrated GPS, inertial sensing, compass data, and radio telemetry, and implemented waypoint planning, map display, and closed-loop heading control. The project brought hardware selection, embedded interfaces, software, and flight demonstration together in one working system.

System Record

My role
CONTRIBConceivedCONTRIBDesignedCONTRIBBuiltCONTRIBSystem IntegrationCONTRIBField Testing
Domain
DOMAINAerial · Ground · Underwater RoboticsDOMAINElectronics & Embedded Systems
Platforms
PLATFORMUAV PlatformPLATFORMLabVIEW
Methods
METHODSensor Fusion
Outcomes
OUTCOMEDeployed PrototypeOUTCOMEPublic Demonstration
Period
2010–2012

Development & Validation

  • Augmented the Parrot AR.Drone with ArduPilot Mega, a u-blox GPS receiver, IMU, HMC5883L 3-axis compass, and XBee RF link for independent navigation telemetry.
  • LabVIEW ground station splits vehicle control (Parrot SDK over Wi-Fi/UDP) from navigation: live map display via Google Earth/KML, Haversine distance and bearing to a clicked waypoint, and closed-loop heading corrections in flight.
  • Fourteen-month thesis (Dec 2010–2012) synthesizing automation coursework into a working automatic transport system — from equipment selection and wiring through GCS software and flight demonstration.
  • Demo reel documents path planning of the quadcopter UAV with GPS using LabVIEW.

Credits & Collaborators

  • Nikolaos Giakoumidis

    ΤΕΙ Piraeus · Department of Automation

    Sole author · Thesis

  • Konstantinos Alafodimos

    ΤΕΙ Piraeus · Department of Automation

    Thesis supervisor

  • Grigoris Nikolaou

    ΤΕΙ Piraeus · Department of Automation

    Thesis supervisor

  • Nikolaos Mavridis

    Interactive Robots and Media Lab (IRML)

    Advisor

Publications & media

Download thesis PDF →

Related Work

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