P14231: UAV Aerial Imaging

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Project Summary	Project Information
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft capable of operating autonomously through an autopilot or remotely by an operator on the ground. UAVs significantly reduce operational costs and pilot risk, and when properly configured can be successfully operated by less experienced users compared to full size aircraft. A UAV can fulfill a variety of mission profiles, including aerial imaging. Previously completed projects have produced an airborne imaging system, an aircraft large enough to carry the imaging system as payload, and an autopilot. However, the airborne imaging system is potentially antiquated, the aircraft requires further testing, and the autopilot has only seen implementation on a smaller test aircraft. A UAV will be constructed combining the work of previous projects which will carry a payload of imaging hardware and software to accomplish Imaging science research and applications.	Project Name UAV Aerial Imagery & Autopilot Integration Project Number P14231 Project Family Vehicle Systems and Technologies Previous Projects: P11232, P10232, P13231, P11231, P10236, P10231 P11562, P09561, P09233, P09232, P09231, P10661 Start Term 2131 End Term 2133 Faculty Guide & Primary Customer Dr. Jason Kolodziej, jrkeme@rit.edu

Final Project Status

Working aerial vehicle that can hold a substantial paylod
ArduPilot and camera integration completed - Can send a signal to trigger the camera from the ArduPilot
Aircraft has the capability to navigate, autonomously, to set waypoints
Camera captures occur at the waypoints
At this iteration not every waypoint will save telemetry data due to an unknown bug
After a flight the logs and images can be synchronized using a custom Java program

Possible Causes for Log Defect

The IO operations on the ArduPilot could be synchronous, meaning that they block the CPU. The CPU would have to wait until the IO operation completes to continue its processing. If this is the case it could be interrupting the telemetry data writing in order to complete more important autopilot operations.
The way the camera is triggered is by sending three electric pulses to the camera. In order to create these pulses the CPU is slept in between signal changes. By sleeping the CPU this could be adversely affecting the other operations, including data logging

Aerial Photo of the team taken during testing on RIT's campus

Left to Right: Reed, Spencer, Alex, Tim, Aaron

Member	Discipline	Role	Contact
Arick Reed Abraham	ME	Team Lead - Aero Design	aaa8603@rit.edu
Tim Fratangelo	CE	Code Master	tmf1707@rit.edu
Spencer Hanson	ME	Aero Design	sdh7580@rit.edu
Alex Klymkow	EE	Electronics/Power Design	amk5922@rit.edu
Aaron Wilbee	EE	Camera Integration	ajw4388@rit.edu

MSD I	MSD II
Planning & Execution Problem Definition Systems Design Sub Systems Design Detailed Design Project Review Code of Ethics	Planning & Execution Aircraft Design Project Results Manual Source Code CAD Schematics