Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
Characterizing wind and water flow using quadcopters and floating assets
Understanding the wind-induced drift of objects in aquatic environments is crucial for search and rescue of both persons in distress and containers carrying hazardous material. However, existing information on wind-induced drift is limited for a broad class of objects due to cost constraints. The project focused on developing a low-cost method to characterize the wind-induced drift of floating assets.
Calibration board used for testing individual assets. Seen here are a PixHawk autopilot, as well as GPS, power, and telemetry hardware.
Autonomy
Characterizing wind-induced drift required simultaneous operation of multiple VTOL aircraft and floating assets. As the lead undergraduate researcher, I developed autonomous ground control tools using PixHawk autopilot and open-source software Mission Planner. Additionally, I configured telemetry hardware to increase reliability during sea operations.
One of the floating assets, named Oscar, being tested for telemetry reliability and autonomous protocol optimization.
Field Tests
Telemetry hardware and GPS accuracy were tested to reduce the risk of damage to assets during sea operations. I developed and conducted several of these tests at nearby bodies of water.
Asset path generated using recorded PixHawk and GPS data.
Analysis
Autonomously-gathered flight data was post-processed to characterize wind-induced drift. These were further used to test current environmental flow hazard models. Research results were published on the American Geophysical Union.