Work Structure
The structure of the project
How is the work set up and organized?
Workpackage 1
The objectives of this WP are to lead the project to technical, organisational and financial success, to set up research and innovation, communication and project management structures and to ensure the overall project deliverables quality. To this end, the following activities will take place:
- Overall management and coordination of the project.
- Technical (research and innovation) management.
- Financial project management.
- Successful completion of the project’s scientific and technical objectives and deliverables.
- Coordination and reporting of the project activities.
Workpackage 2
MULTIDRONE system specifications and design for media production
This work package will be dedicated to the definition of multi-actor drone system requirements and specifications within the context of media production. The main objectives can be summarized as follows:
- Elicitation of the multiple drone media production requirements.
- Specifications and design of a modular multi-actor system architecture, communication and functionality.
- Determination and follow-up of regulatory, security, privacy specifications. Continuous risk assessment and mitigation.
Workpackage 3
Cooperative intelligent planning and control for safe autonomous multidrone systems
This workpackage will research multiple drone planning, control and robust communications, in order to achieve intelligent behavior and enhanced safety, robustness and autonomy for the multiple drone team, thus, allowing the production crew to focus on the creative part of their work.
The specific objectives of WP3 are: a) the development of the tools for high-level mission planning; b) multiple drone formation control and online planning/re-planning during shooting/production; c) ensuring multiple drone safety, robustness and autonomy and d) the development of an autonomous and reliable multiple drone communication infrastructure.
Workpackage 4
Multidrone active perception and AV shooting
This Workpackage will research the necessary multiple drone active perception functionalities, as well as multi-view AV capture intelligence. Emphasis will be placed on advancing the state of the art in these areas, targeting novel, robust techniques, capable of operating in real-world conditions. Its main objectives can be summarized as follows: a) to provide, both before and during production, semantic world models for drone team navigation, AV production planning and execution; b) to track in real-time and in real-world conditions, for production purposes, individual targets or groups of targets of interest; c) to create a wealth of novel intelligent shooting/cinematography techniques enabling artistically meaningful multi-view capture of the event, with minimal human intervention, while following the initial instructions of the director; d) to analyse the multi-view data towards extracting semantic information related to humans (individuals), crowds, events, points of interest and e) to establish tools for the creation of novel visual effects and (immersive) media experiences. Visual (RGB/RGBD) and other sensors, e.g., LIDAR, GPS, RFID will be used to this end.
Workpackage 5
Integrated MULTIDRONE system implementation
The overall objective of WP5 is to deliver a completely integrated MULTIDRONE solution, ready to be validated in real conditions in WP6. Though WP5 is mainly about integration work, it also comprises some development and enhancement of existing components. The complete system includes: a) multiple drones and b) ground infrastructure, namely, an Outside Broadcast truck (OBT) and a Logistics truck (LT) providing drone docking/recharging. Integrated software will consist of modules coming from WP3 (multiple drone mission planning, flight/formation control and drone safety/autonomy services), WP4 (semantic world modelling and models, multiple drone localization, target localization/tracking, visual information analysis and novel shooting techniques) and WP5 (multi-drone HRI/HCI software at the ground station). Communication function will be deployed both in drones and on the ground infrastructure. Simulation/testing facilities will be set-up to support integration work. Detailed objectives and activities are:
Implementation/integration of the drone platforms (units) to be used in the multiple drone system.
Ground infrastructure implementation.
Design and development of overall planning and control tools (Human-Robot and Human-Computer interfaces) to be installed in the ground infrastructure to provide the production crew the means to organize shooting and have high-level situation awareness.
Setup of simulation and testing facilities, as part of the integration work.
Overall multi-actor (multiple drone and production crew) hardware and software platform integration both at drone and at ground infrastructure level, based on MULTIDRONE functional requirements and architecture design (Task T2.2).
Workpackage 6
MULTIDRONE system validation and demonstration in experimental media productions
This workpackage will deal with testing/validating of the MULTIDRONE platform and demonstrating it in three experimental media productions. Its objectives will be achieved by: a) producing the experimental media production specifications, b) proof-of-concept testing and validation and finally by c) the experimental demonstration of the MULTIDRONE platform in the planned media productions.
Workpackage 7
Exploitation and dissemination
The objectives of this workpackage are:
- Dissemination of the project results through scientific publications in journals and conferences, presentations in tradeshows/exhibitions, newsletter creation, setup and maintenance of the project web site and other means
- Communication with the general public
- Development and implementation of the exploitation strategy for the project results.
- Market monitoring
Workpackage 8
The objectives of this workpackage include the discussion and debate of legal and ethical issues regarding the usage of drones.