UAV Electronics Integration

For those of you who have not heard of this project, I am a member of the Missouri University of Science and Technology UAV Team (www.aessuav.org) and we are building a UAV to compete in the 2008 Australian UAV Outback Rescue Challenge. We are currently in the processes of integrating all of our electronics that will go into our UAV (you can find previous blog posts about our progress on our site). I'm not sure if our project would really fit into the average DIY Drone user's price range, but here it is anyways.

UAV Electronics Test Rig

I recently started assembling a test rig to integrate all of the electronics that will be going in the UAV. Byperforming all of this integration on test bench, the finalinstallation and configuration will be performed much faster. This willalso allow us do our HIL (Hardware In the Loop) simulation with all ofthe components connected.

You may have noticed that there are two large NiHM battery packs, these will soon be replaced by two (11.1V 3200mAh) Lithium Polymer battery packs, saving us about half a pound of weight and significantly increasing our power capacities. Although for bench testing all of the electronics will be powered of off a standard ATX computer power supply. The next step is the get the HIL simulation working with theautopilot and the it’s simulator, this part has been a bit finicky butit should be resolved now.

As a team we have also discussed possible strategies for image acquisition and processing. We had previously planned on simply acquiring VGA resolution video at 30 frames per second, but after reconsidering what altitudes we will be required to fly at to cover the search area in a reasonable time we quickly realized that VGA video would not provide the resolution we need to identify a human target onthe ground from an altitude of 400 feet. We have since decided it wouldbe best to use a much higher resolution still camera taking images atset intervals and tagging them with the GPS coordinates and theorientation of the UAV.

Hi Jonathan. Whilst I didn't see the IR lamp actually on Joe, I do know that it was a Videotec IR50WFL11. I'm guessing the organisers had it hooked up to a 12 volt deep cycle battery as it was meant to be on all day. It has an 850nm infra-red filter on it. Go to http://www.networkvideoproducts.com.au/Products/ProductList/tabid/1... for a full description. Concerning the competition itself - I haven't heard anything lately. I was talking with one of the organisers in January sometime and he said they were employing a full time person to run the comp. Details shouldn't be far away. We will be there as a high school team definitely and I'm hoping as a search and rescue competitor as well but there is so much to do. You will have a blast though. This year will be much more competitive and I'd like to go in it just for the fun and for the learning experience. Bye for now - ab

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Anthony Banks February 26, 2008 at 4:22am

Hi Jonathan. Whilst I didn't see the IR lamp actually on Joe, I do know that it was a Videotec IR50WFL11. I'm guessing the organisers had it hooked up to a 12 volt deep cycle battery as it was meant to be on all day. It has an 850nm infra-red filter on it. Go to http://www.networkvideoproducts.com.au/Products/ProductList/tabid/1... for a full description. Concerning the competition itself - I haven't heard anything lately. I was talking with one of the organisers in January sometime and he said they were employing a full time person to run the comp. Details shouldn't be far away. We will be there as a high school team definitely and I'm hoping as a search and rescue competitor as well but there is so much to do. You will have a blast though. This year will be much more competitive and I'd like to go in it just for the fun and for the learning experience. Bye for now - ab
Jonathan February 25, 2008 at 1:42pm

Thanks Anthony. I have a question regarding Outback Joe. The rules said that he was heated, assuming so he could be located with IR. Do you know any more details about that? Like how much warmer he is than his surroundings, or whether he has an IR strobe?

Hope to see you in Australia,
Jonathan
Anthony Banks February 25, 2008 at 3:49am

G'day - just stumbled on this particular site. I was at the Outback Challenge in 07 in the capacity of supervising teacher of our high school team(s). In 08, another teacher and I are thinking of giving the big one a crack. I've actually seen Outback Joe close up. I'd be happy to answer any questions of a not too technical nature - what to expect, conditions, croc whereabouts out on the airfield, that kind of thing. Be good to chat. regards - anthony
Nullified January 21, 2008 at 11:23am

I haven't heard too much about the 2008 Challenge, but I'm fairly certain that it's on, and I imagine the rules will be similar.
Jonathan January 19, 2008 at 5:59pm

Hey, does anyone have information on the 2008 Outback Challenge? I've read the website about the 2007 challenge. Is the 2008 one definitely on, same rules?
Nullified January 7, 2008 at 7:52am

Paul,
You are correct, but there is no specific requirement for it to be real time as long as you can complete the entire mission of finding Outback Joe and dropping the bottle of water next to him in the time frame of one hour. That's not to say that we are not aiming for real time images from the UAV, and of course we would like to complete the mission as fast as possible.

We are hopping we can get the kind of range and bandwidth that we need to be able to get our images in near real time with our 802.11g link (we plan on having a high gain tacking antenna on the ground).

Thanks,
David
paul hubner January 7, 2008 at 7:25am

Null,

Are you certain about the real-time component? I read that you have to be able to locate the target, then get approval from an official to commence the drop phase. That says real time (or close to it) to me.

Good Luck - i think you have a good foundation.

Paul
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson January 5, 2008 at 9:09pm

For those reading along, they're using the Procerus Kestral autopilot, which is $5k.
http://procerusuav.com/productsKestrelAutopilot.php. A bit out of our price range, but the sort of thing many of us imagine doing ourselves.

That link in the original post takes you to their blog, which is well worth reading (dramatic *and* informative)
http://www.aessuav.org/
Nullified January 5, 2008 at 8:55pm

Fortunately we have a pretty decent budget and some very supportive sponsors, I'd say for all of the parts it's been approaching $8,000, which unfortunately is well out of the reach of most DIY'ers (the majority of that money went towards the autopilot).
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson January 5, 2008 at 8:30pm

Can you make a guess at your total budget for the project (aside from travel!). It would be helpful to know what it takes to get to your level.

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