What
are the design and implementation of a specific UAS mission (military, or
civil)? Determine a specific subject mission, consider public use or emergency
services as law enforcement, medical, rescue or fire related mission sets. In
your response:
·
Identify and discuss the particular mission
you are highlighting for a UAS
·
Select three platforms capable of
performing the mission and obtain an appropriate reference citation for each
·
Discuss any considerations relative to the
mission and if they correlate to the performance of any related mission
execution tasks
·
Identify the benefits and challenges
associated with performing the particular UAS mission you are highlighting
·
Identify and discuss at least two legal and
or ethical challenges to the specific mission you are highlighting
There are many
current missions and missions yet to be thought up that will be done by
commercial UAS. The variety of mission
scope is large and continues to grow by the day as current and new companies
innovate and emerge with new ideas. One
mission that will be highlighted here is the gathering of aerial data for
surveying and Photogrammetry.
Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from
photographs. The photographs are taken
with a high degree of overlap and then a computing software processes the
images together by finding matches from each photograph to stitch together an
orthomosaic photograph. The photos can
be used to create point cloud models which can be used to make a digital
surface models (DSM). Point cloud models
are transferred to CAD software through surface reconstruction. The models can then be used to run
simulations and predict behavior of the surface under various conditions and
disturbances (such as flood, earthquakes, etc).
Traditionally this has been done by manned aircraft, but increasingly
UAS are showing up to do the task for less the cost, especially for small
areas.
Limitation to UAS
in performing survey tasks include both technical and regulation
obstacles. Many survey areas are
multiple square miles in area. To
perform the survey efficiently, the UAS has to be able to fly beyond of line of
sight (BLOS) miles away from the operator.
Sensor payload and altitude go hand in hand. The higher the altitude the UAS is flown at,
the quicker and more efficient the survey can be. But at higher altitudes, sensors are required
to be increasingly more accurate. More
accurate sensors will increase the cost.
Range, sensor accuracy, and altitude are all technical obstacles that
obviously can be overcome by throwing more money at the project. However, the UAS does not have an advantage
over manned aircraft unless it is significantly less expensive. So, the challenge is to design an aircraft
with the range, sensor payload, and altitude capability in a low cost manner.
Regulations
present challenges to UAS surveying. The
currently proposed UAS rules only allow operation up to 500 ft AGL and prohibit
BLOS operation. For surveying of large
projects, both of these capabilities are necessities. The regulations should be modified to safely
allow BLOS operation. UAS outfitted with
sophisticated sense and avoid systems and ADS-B equipment should be allowed to
operate above 500 ft AGL and BLOS.
Honeycomb Corp. AgDroneTM
System
Like most drone manufacturers, Honeycomb Corp is a
relatively new company. It was founded
in 2012 and is based in Wilsonville, OR.
They have essentially one product, the AgDroneTM System. It is a fixed wing aircraft weighing a little
under 5 lb. It seems very capable, it
includes dual 16.1 MP RGB visible and NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation
Index) NIR (near infrared) cameras and ground resolution up 1.26 in with a
flight time of 30-60 min, depending on wind and other conditions. Both cameras can be carried on the drone
during the same flight, no need to swap them out for different missions. It is also constructed of durable aramid
(Kevlar) composite. It appears to be of
more durable construction than the foam construction of the Sensefly eBee
models. One downside is the size, the
wing span is just over 4 ft. It also appears that the drone is not collapsible
for transport. So with carry case and
all, this is not a drone that you could just stuff in a backpack. The cost for this drone appears to be in the
mid range for survey / agriculture drones, $10 – $20 k.
3D Robotics
3D Robotics is a
US company that has been around for a few years. They started as a company providing resources
and parts for the DIY (do it yourself) drone builders. They have recently released the 3DR Solo,
which is a direct competitor to the DJI Phantom series drones. The Solo is built for the GoPro, but on a
cost basis it is about $400-$500 more than the Phantom 3 for a similar
setup. The Solo will not be further
described here for this reason.
The only other 3DR
model of merit to mention is the Aero-M.
The Aero-M is a revamped Aero, built specifically for mapping. The Aero came out a few years ago and is a
fixed wing drone, costing around $1300 and does not come with a camera (though
some DIY people have reported success with retrofitting the Sony S100 and
others). The Aero-M and the X-8 (3DR’s
quadcopter mapper) both come in at a price of $5400. The Aero-M comes with a 12 MP camera mounted
looking down and has automated software for creating, flying, and analyzing
mapping missions. The software is
downloaded to any laptop computer. It
allows a polygon to be selected on a map for the desired survey area. The software then calculates the waypoint
grid, altitude, flight time, and ground sampling distance that can be
achieved. The waypoints are then
uploaded from the laptop to the aircraft.
Once uploaded, the aircraft is pre-flight checked and armed and then it
is simply thrown into the air. The
aircraft senses the forward movement and it automatically starts the prop and
then flies the mission. When the mission
is complete, the aircraft will automatically land in the designated spot. FPV kit with nose mounted camera is
included. A separate receiver and
monitor is required to view the video feed.
The aircraft does not appear to be very rain resistant. Flight time is about 40 minutes and the range
is about 1 km (0.62 mi). Ground sampling
distance is 2 in/pixel. The weight is 6.8
lb.
The aircraft can
be flown automatically or manually. It
comes with a scaled down version of Pix4D (made by a Swiss company and one of
the current standards today for mapping software). This version of Pix4D allows only 2D mosaics
and does not support 3D images. The
Pix4D 3DR version is specific to the Aero-M and the X-8-M. The X-8-M is 3DR’s quadcopter mapper and will
not be discussed further because similar tasks can be done with the DJI Phantom
series for much less the cost. The
Aero-M must have a wide open space to takeoff and land. The aircraft is landed by performing a belly
landing. Depending on the surface the
belly landing has the potential to cause damage to the aircraft and to the
camera sensor. The aircraft appears to
be constructed of foam that may dent and crack easily.
For the price, the
3DR Aero-M appears to be the most affordable entry point into professional
fixed wing mapping drones. The price
cannot be beat for the capability that it offers.
Aeromao
Aeromao
is a Canadian company that seems to have very capable fixed wing aircraft for
mapping priced in the mid-commercial range ($8-$16k). The Talon is the lowest price option. The 300 and EV2 are the other higher priced,
higher performance options. The Talon
comes with the Sony a5100 24 MP camera with a survey grade lens and boasts a 20
km (12 mi) range! Endurance is 80
min! Ground Sampling Distance (GSD) can
be as good as 1.5 cm/pix (0.59 in/pix)! The
camera has a lens protector that automatically uncovers the camera after
takeoff and covers the camera before landing to protect the camera. It also comes with a parachute landing system
so that the aircraft can be operated in rugged environments. Options for dual sensor operation and a wide
variety of hot-swappable sensors (NIR, FLIR, etc) are available. The Talon has all electronics enclosed and is
able to fly in light rain. With these
features and a price of around $9000, this is a pretty awesome package in
comparison to other COTS UAS currently available.
However, as an
entry point, the 12 mi range, 80 min endurance, and 0.59 in/pix resolution may
be a little overkill. It sure does put
the Sensefly eBee and the Honeycomb Agdrone to shame though, because both of
those UAS are priced above the Talon. This
is a serious UAS that would be useful for very large surveys in remote areas,
such as for forest service use. The
Talon is after all made by a Canadian company.
With Canada’s wide expanse of remote territory it is understandable that
this UAS would be very useful in such an environment. For surveying one Farmer’s field, this is
probably a little too much.
References
American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote
Sensing. (2015, June 10). Retrieved
from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Society_for_Photogrammetry_and_Remote_Sensing
Austin, R. (2010). Unmanned Aircraft Systems.
West Sussex UK: John Wiley & Sons.
Geographic Information System. (2015, June 27). Retrieved from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographic_information_system
Photogrammetry. (2015, June 25). Retrieved from Wikipedia:
http://www.geo-matching.com/category/id64-uas-for-mapping-and-3d-modelling.html?param=ZmlsdGVyWzQ2NDY5XVtdPUFpcmNyYWZ0&sort=br
Point Cloud. (2015, May 19). Retrieved from Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_cloud
UAS for Mapping and 3D Modeling. (2015). Retrieved from Geo Matching.com:
http://www.geo-matching.com/category/id64-uas-for-mapping-and-3d-modelling.html?param=ZmlsdGVyWzQ2NDY5XVtdPUFpcmNyYWZ0&sort=br
