Satnav controlled Drones

[Lyle Brotherton]

Elsewhere on this Forum we have been discussing the many applications of satnav and my old friend, Bob Checketts from the Alaskan Coastguard (ACG), pinged me about this noveland innovative use of the technology.

The town of Nome is so remote that everything has to come in by air or sea, with heavy bulk items restricted to sea only, fuel falls into this category. The ACG provide an escort to the fuel barges ice-breaking the route and securing a safe place to harbour on the vessel. Because the frozen shoreline is constantly changing, in addition to variations in depth of the pack-ice at sea, continuous surveys need to be conducted to monitor the potential access routes and safe areas to anchor.

The University of Alaska has developed a drone that can fly over these areas to video and still photo these areas. The drone reports its location using an on-board satnav and is viewed in real-time on Google Earth (GE). Better still, the drone can use the on-board satnav to fly predetermined flight paths, create waypoints, geo-tagging every photo, and when the drone is flown over areas of interest it track can be download directly onto the map to mark the area as either safe or hazardous.

The digital cartography can then be shared with anyone who has access to GE.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNZY-fGYQUw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNZY-fGYQUw</a>

[adi]

Lyle knows I have an interest in UAV technology. I wish I could afford an MM6 Hexacopter or Octocopter or at least afford the components and had the skill to put one together myself. I see a huge use for them in industry and the emergency services. They are slowly getting there but if I had had the money I would have built a business years ago.

Here is a great film of a MM6 Hexacopter in action.

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8naz0xyIQM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8naz0xyIQM</a>

[Callum]

Incredible and I knew nothing of these, just the dreadful things they send to Afghanistan.

Think of their uses in urban areas from floods to public disorder, even inside buildings, I guess with differential satnav, and you could fit infrared cameras to these drones.

[adi]

Callum They are still considered as a very expensive toy and sadly most people in industry don't see a place for them but there value to allow a person to project their vision is immense. They save money, time, manpower, risk in a health and safety environment, risk in a high risk environment, the list goes on.

Imagine if you had a contract from the highways agency to check a bridge on a motorway for useful life. Today that means shutting the motorway, erecting gantries, millions of pounds effect on the economy. Now imagine a UAV doing an initial inspection, of it may mean having a speed matrix on that section of the motorway but little else. But if the inspection passes they can pull out and move on to the next bridge no problem.

Their use is truly huge.

[Callum]

A technology rapidly advancing Triumph-F1