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V2 of the Medical express rules posted (and other info)

Posted by Mark Omo on November 18, 2015 at 8:36pm

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The UAV Challenge Technical Committee today announced that the venue for the 2016 UAV Challenge Medical Express competition will be Dalby, Queensland, Australia. The Base for the event will be the Dalby Model Aero Club (DMAC). A rules update was also launched today, with Version 2 of the rules now available on the Medical Express Page. A full list of changes to the rules can be found on page 5 of v2 of the rules document. Finally, it was announced today, that the date of the Medical Express event has been pushed back by one week (to 27 September 2016), along with the due date of the Deliverable 3. Please see the Medical Express page for further details.

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  • JB November 24, 2015 at 7:15am

    The responses are on the Medical Challenge FAQ pages now if anyone is interested. Items 18, 27, 28 and 29.

  • JB November 23, 2015 at 3:18am

    I've received some clarifications from the UAV Challenge organizers on questions we had which I expect to go up on the FAQ page soon. In short my interpretation is;

    • Continuous comms is required throughout the flight and on/after landing to pick up the sample, as a "requirement" from CASA. So "Type 2" autonomy aircraft are now no longer allowed at the event. There's still no consequence for loss of comms or guidelines on how to deal with it. I suppose it's up to the teams to identify the "risk" of comms loss and mitigate it, so long CASA is happy with it the organizers are too! The question is whether it's worth considering operating without comms at all, seeing we now know that there is mobile coverage.
    • Joe will activate the arming switch upon placement of sample, but will not be responsible to determine if the aircraft is safe or flight worthy etc. 
    • They included the option of a secondary RF aircraft due to requests from teams. Once again it's up to the teams to identify potential risks and they have not made recommendations for or against it, nor in detail how it's scored. They will determine giving a go decision according to the overall safety case, preference of course given to the safest. I'd say that a second aircraft increases the chance of not being scored highly in the safety case overall.
    • The same applies for use of large potentially "lethal" airframes in comparison to smaller airframes. Aircraft with potentially severe consequences (aka large heli) will require equally significant mitigation strategies, so reducing the consequences (small foamie) would reduce the mitigation strategy ie improve the safety case. A team that uses a large aircraft is likely to have higher consequences to manage and if they do not manage them well enough will consequently be scored poorly, or not permitted to fly.

    Once it's on the FAQ I'll start a discussion on the UAV Chalenge group if required.

    Regards JB

  • JB November 21, 2015 at 3:05am

    Hi Mark

    Yeah that's a bit of a problem. I'm pretty sure there would be some multiband 3G or 4G modems that would work in both places. If not give me a PM and I'll look to organise an Aussie one for you so you can install it, but it won't help you for testing etc if it doesn't work on the US carrier. Can't really help with that bit...otherwise an Android phone with OTG might fit the bill. Let us know how you go.

    Regards JB

  • Mark Omo November 20, 2015 at 10:38am

    JB I was looking around and getting a sim seems easy, the problem is that AU uses the 900/2100 MHz 3g band and in most of the US we use the 850/1900 MHz 3g band meaning I would need to get different equipment, and while not a huge deal I would hate to find out 2 days before that it's not going to work

  • JB November 20, 2015 at 9:18am

    Hey Mark

    Optus and Telstra prepaid USB modems with SIM can be had for between $20-40AUD including a few GB's data from the local supermarket. No probs there. You'll need to integrate and test it though with your system. I'd check to see which ones we use in Oz and see if you can get the same model on an US carrier for testing.

    It would be cool to have a live stream running on a dedicated website or something. Maybe Droneshare would be interested in hosting it?

  • Mark Omo November 20, 2015 at 8:59am

    A mavlink stream is a great idea! I think when we are there we will try for that, if someone would test the speeds out there that would be great, then we could use a much less expensive 3g modem for connectivity rather than satellite communication which costs $$$$, only other problem is that US and AU have different cell bands :(

  • JB November 20, 2015 at 8:12am

    Hmmm true...looks better than Telstra this time.

    Have both sims with static IP so I can choose there I suppose. Sweet.

    If you do head over to Dalby I would be keen to get some feedback on some 4G speed tests if you feel like sharing. Would set my nerves at ease. :-)

    BTW looks like you'll have easy takeoff and landing in the base area now with a landing strip. Dunno how tough it's going to be in the landing area if it is there were I think it is, it looks pretty cluttered for a STOL. 

    Talking about sharing maybe we could share the mavlink stream out this time around. It's not like you can exactly tell where Joe is from that without actually seeing his position, which you could if you periscope the FPV stream and everyone can see it. Last time they were pretty hush hush when we found Joe. Plus some teams might not land close at all or can even be temporarily "lost", so the telemetry probably less critical. The organizers might be able to stream it from their NMEA as well...then everyone could follow it on MP at home...lol that'd be cool if ain't against the rules.

  • Stephen Gloor November 20, 2015 at 7:09am

    Optus looks OK

  • JB November 20, 2015 at 5:45am

    Hi Stephen

    You say pretty good 4G connection? I checked Telstra and it's only 3G in that area and only 4G in the town itself. Looks like there's only one tower in town. It's worse than Kingaroy from what I can tell atm for 4G. Or are you going to try Optus?

    -

    Joshua

    Thanks for the location....I forgot to share that the address doesn't google properly.

  • Stephen Gloor November 20, 2015 at 5:19am

    @Gary Mortimer - might be persuaded to Periscope the event a bit if there is enough demand as there should be pretty good 4G coverage.  Mind you will have to re-activate a twitter account.

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