Skip to content
Back to Home
Presentation HEIC

AI Surveillance Drone

Fall 2025State College, PA

This project is an offline object detection system that uses a DIY drone and a Raspberry Pi to identify objects without an internet connection. It is designed to work in remote or restricted areas where cloud services are unavailable.

Raspberry Pi 5RoboticsReverse EngineeringComputer VisionEmbedded SystemsObject DetectionYOLOOffline ComputingDeep LearningOpenCVHardware IntegrationPresentation

Team

Samit Madatanapalli
Computer Engineer
Yi Zheng
Computer Engineer

Sponsors & Advisors

Dr. Xiaozhen Wang
Instructor

How It Works

Aerial Capture: The process begins with a quadrotor drone that captures live footage from its surroundings while in flight.

Data Transmission: This footage is broadcast wirelessly through the drone's built-in Wi-Fi module.

Local Processing: A Raspberry Pi 5 hub receives the video stream and uses a locally installed YOLO deep learning model to analyze every frame.

Real-Time Identification: The AI instantly identifies objects—such as people or vehicles—and overlays bounding boxes and confidence scores onto the video.

Offline Output: The final processed feed is displayed on a touchscreen, providing high-tech surveillance without ever needing a cloud or internet connection.

Future Improvements

  • Processing Power: Adding a dedicated GPU or TPU for faster, more accurate AI models.
  • Automated Reports: Creating logs that summarize what was detected and when to save review time.
  • Direct Streaming: Using open-source drones to stream video directly to the Pi without a middle device.