An Automatic Battery Recharge and Condition Monitoring System for Autonomous Drones

The use of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles for monitoring infrastructures to guarantee safety and security is day by day more important. The possibility of a complete autonomous system for this kind of applications, in which drones can accomplish tasks 24 hours a day, seven days a week, without human intervention, is becoming a realistic scenario. From this standpoint a challenging issue is the automatic drone-batteries recharging and condition monitoring. In this article the authors present the solution adopted in a prototype drone hangar, able to manage up to 4 independent drones, that was developed with the support of the Italian Railway System (RFI).