Design a search system for UASs (Unmanned Aircraft System) to be used at sea for locating a variety of targets.
Sponsor
NAWCAD
Team Members
William Ajay Jonathan Martin Nathan Williams James McGrath Eddie Ubri jr Devin Gilmore
Project Poster
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Project Video
Project Summary
Overview
The United States Navy is often tasked with searching for targets at sea and in the past has done so using human controlled aircraft, which is subject to human error. Our team has been tasked with creating a framework for unmanned aerial systems (UASs) that can accurately and successfully search for and find a target at sea. Our project implements a system which takes in a variety of information that allows multiple unmanned aircraft to find a target at sea quickly in a much more reliable manner than ever before.
Objectives
– Create a framework for a system of unmanned aircraft with a goal of finding a target at sea.
– Create a visualization to show, in real-time, the simulated drones performing a search.
Approach
– Customer needs were gathered through biweekly meetings with our sponsor which allowed us to understand our objective, ask questions, and receive feedback on what we’ve developed so far.
– While conceptualizing our project, we had to think about the most efficient way of creating a system that works together that others can continue to work on in the future with ease. We decided to review patents relating to our project including patents that regarded drone flight paths and developments in search and rescue.
– Data that was gathered from our sponsor includes information regarding search area sizes, drone visual ranges, and other additional information and references which assisted us in our development.
– We developed our project by splitting into smaller groups and working together to develop and test individual pieces of our system. These individual pieces were then grouped together and tested.
– We validated our results by testing a variety of different situations where the specifications of our drones and our search area differed. Our results consisted of a visual representation of the data that we collected by running our simulation.
Outcomes
– Creation of a framework for a reliable autonomous search process for unmanned aerial systems.
– Framework will be used by future teams in order to create a more complex and efficient system for autonomously finding targets at sea.