Equipment Day

This week for class, students went outside for an equipment day to become familiar with different mediums for capturing aerial imagery. After researching UAV technology earlier in the semester, it was time to get some hands on experience with two different rotary crafts, along with a 9-foot kite and a small rocket.

 

Figure 1:  This rotary craft was funded by our professor, Joe Hupy, and built by a physics student, Max, still attending UWEC. Rotary wing crafts are known to have short flight times and as such this craft was built with payload in mind. This craft has a flight time of about 15 minutes at best but can also carry more equipment and sensors than others its size.

 

Figure 2: This is Max preforming the calibration flight for Joe's UAV. The craft jerked around back and forth testing and calibrating the different motors and electrical pieces. It stayed in the air for about 8 minutes and then made a safe landing back on the sidewalk.

 

 Figure 3: This is the heads-up-display (HUD) for Joe's UAV. There is a small sensor on the front of the craft that transmits a first person view of what the craft sees back to the headset. The headset also displays assorted flight information.

 Figure 4: This is Max's own rotary craft, built by himself and funded by the University. Max was more comfortable with his own craft and showed off his skills in UAV piloting by spinning the craft around in the air and racing it at top speed nearly touching the ground.

 Figure 5: A comparison shot of both rotary crafts. The camera seen mounted on the front bottom of Joe's craft is for taking the aerial imagery. A regular camera was used for low cost and ease of use. Smaller sensors that comprise nothing but the actual sensor itself, not actual cameras, are ideal for optimizing the payload capacity of a UAV.

 Figure 6: Here is Joe's 9-foot kite. Setup is very easy consisting of proper placement of 2 metal bars. On moderatly windy days, a camera can be attached to the string to capture aerial imagery. On days that have very little to no wind, a balloon can be used instead.

 Figure 7: Here the camera can be seen. It was just attached and will be let up at least another 100 feet before imagery will be collected. Wind is needed to get the kite into the air and keep it there, however, too much wind will blow the camera around and the quality of imagery may be compromised.

 Figure 8: The final experiment of the day was a mini rocket. Only half the fuel for the rocket ignited which resulted in somewhat of an anticlimactic ending to the day. Small sensors were taped on the sides of the rocket to take pictures every second or so. The rocket did not achieve a proper height to collect any meaningful imagery.