Engineering Commons^™

Uav Catapult, Sean Drew Huxley, Benjamin Richard Lacasse, David Matthew Garcia, Jordan Joseph Cearns

Mechanical Engineering

This document outlines the Senior Design Project proposed by Dr. Aaron Drake that was assigned to a team of Mechanical Engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The purpose of this project was to design, build, test, and finalize a launching system for two small, fixed wing, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) owned by Dr. Drake and Cal Poly. The goal was to create a system that was both portable and reliable to use, only requiring a two-person team to use effectively in the field. The most important design requirements were determined to be the launch speed, assembly …

Documentation Of Concrete Slabs Prior To Pours, Peter D. Riley

Construction Management

Concrete slabs in multi-level commercial building projects contain many components that become no longer visible once concrete has been poured. As building designs advance and continue to locate components in concrete, it is important to document what these slabs contain in order to verify accurate craftsmanship and allow for improved future construction workflows and building modernizations. This paper explores current industry needs for proficient documentation as well as practices to achieve this. A case study was conducted, testing four devices that analyzed feasibility factors for realistic implementation by a contractor such as cost, interoperability, and level of skill required for …

Gesture-Controlled Quadcopter System, Wenhao Yang, Anthony Xu, Kendra Crawford

Honors Theses

According to the statistic given by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, 514 police officers casualties have been attributed to gunfire in the last decade(2008-2017). It is the leading cause of death among police officers and accounts for more than a third of the total 1511 police casualties in the past decade. In this project, we want to provide a safer solution to police officers that are surveying a building for one or multiple potential dangerous personnel. We are working to design and build a gesture-controlled quadcopter that can scout ahead of the officer and provide information about the …

Unmanned Aerial Power Line Surveillance Drone, Brock Arp, Wade Vine, Cameron Whigham, Lorenzo Stewart

Senior Design Project For Engineers

The purpose of our project is to provide power line workers and linemen with a safe way to inspect the power lines. Our Aircraft is an UAV that is capable of surveying 200 linear miles in a normal working shift. The aircraft will be launched/landed and operated from an F-150 pickup truck with a facilitated launch mechanism attached. The aircraft must maintain an altitude of 150-400 ft. It will be recovered via net that will extend from the truck as the plane comes in for a landing, This will eliminate the need for landing gear. The goal for this project …

Conceptual Design Of A Combat Search And Rescue Surveillance Unmanned Aerial Aircraft, Juan M. Chirinos-Paiz, Keegan J. Musser, Robert M. Zenko, Joshua Hunter

Senior Design Project For Engineers

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) are becoming more efficient and widely used. The military uses UAV’s because it greatly reduces civilian and combatant deaths and injuries. UAV’s also are used in search and rescue mission to find distress civilians. The team wanted to create an UAV for search and rescue missions and military applications. The aircraft needed to be compact, perform better than other UAV’s, and be low cost. The team did reach a successful aircraft that meet the design requirements. The aircraft was successfully sized around the electronics and allows utilization of additive manufacturing techniques. Project management techniques showed that …

Radio Frequency Toolbox For Drone Detection And Classification, Abdulkabir Bello

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The continuous development of inexpensive embedded sensors has led to the rapid proliferation of new civilian use of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) or drones. It is now easier for civilians to own drones as the cost falls. As we all know drones have a variety of important applications and can also be used for negative effects too. These drones can pose a threat to the security of the population either civilian, organization or industry. There is a need for Radio Frequency Signal Classification (RF-Class) toolbox which can monitor, detect, and classify RF signals from drone communication system. The ability to …

Expendable 3d Printed Rescue Drone, Matthew Chapman, Nathan Knutty, Matthew Chapman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project team designed a 3D printed, expendable drone capable of flying for 80 minutes with a 5 lb payload in order to deliver rescue supplies to individuals in distress.

Unmanned Aerial And Traversing Vehicle -- A Mobile Platform For Bridge Inspections, Clayton A. Fritsche

Masters Theses

“Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), also known as drones, have been rapidly growing in popularity since their creation. This study aimed to create a robotic platform used to assist in the inspection process of the nation’s aging and deteriorating bridges. To this end, a multimodal inspection robot that utilized both flying and driving technologies, was designed, analyzed, and tested for aerial, traversing, and their transitional operability. The design, herein referred to as the “BridgeBot”, was evaluated both computationally and experimentally. A finite element model of the BridgeBot was established and analyzed under static loading scenarios to help determine stress distributions and …

Space Dynamics Laboratory Payload Challenge: Autonomous Water Sampling Uav, Thomas Wheeler, Zachary Williams, Joseph Stack

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following report has been completed over the course of the Fall 2018 and Spring 2019 semesters at The University of Akron by Joseph P. Stack (Aerospace Systems Engineering), Thomas J. Wheeler (Mechanical Engineering) and Zachary M. Williams (Mechanical Engineering). The purpose of this project was to create a payload system for the Akronauts Rocket Design Team to use at the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC) Spaceport America Cup. The Competition as a challenge that is sponsored by Space Dynamics Laboratory specifically regarding payload systems. The challenge in very open-ended and allows student to identify their own scientific experiment and …

Acoustic Source Localization With A Vtol Suav Deployable Module, Kory Olney

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A real time acoustic direction-finding module has been developed to estimate the ele- vation and azimuth of an impulsive event while function aboard a small unmanned air- craft vehicle. The generalized cross-correlation with phase transform method was used to estimate time differences of arrival in an 8 channel microphone array. A linear least squares approach was used to calculate an estimate for the direction of arrival. In order to accomplish this task, a vertical takeoff and landing small unmanned aircraft system was assembled to host the direction finding module. The module itself is made up of an eight-channel synchronous analog-to-digital …

Use Of Drone Technology On Commercial Construction Projects, Andrew Lin

Construction Management

Every successful construction project is an intricate symphony of project management, jobsite operations, and skilled laborers doing what they do best. While traditional means and methods have proven themselves to be reliable and effective, companies must now look into new and improved approaches to expedite their project delivery and maintain their competitive edge in this booming and demanding market. Furthermore, as expectations for new commercial projects grow, the risks of taking on these projects increase alongside them. Skyscrapers are expected to be taller, buildings more efficient, and company campuses vaster and more state-of-the-art than ever before. With technological innovations such …

Scintillator-Based Uav, Austin Mullen, Chris Haseler, Sarah Davis, Brooke Mcmurrer, Tanner Jefferies, Peyton Lara

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Real Time And High Fidelity Quadcopter Tracking System, Tyler Mckay Hall

Computer Engineering

This project was conceived as a desired to have an affordable, flexible and physically compact tracking system for high accuracy spatial and orientation tracking. Specifically, this implementation is focused on providing a low cost motion capture system for future research. It is a tool to enable the further creation of systems that would require the use of accurate placement of landing pads, payload acquires and delivery. This system will provide the quadcopter platform a coordinate system that can be used in addition to GPS.

Field research with quadcopter manufacturers, photographers, agriculture and research organizations were contact and interviewed for information …

Integrated Environment And Proximity Sensing For Uav Applications, Shawn S. Brackett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), or “drone” applications expand, new methods for sensing, navigating and avoiding obstacles need to be developed. The project applies an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to a simulated quadcopter vehicle though Matlab in order to estimate not only the vehicle state but the world state around the vehicle. The EKF integrates multiple sensor readings from range sensors, IMU sensors, and radiation sensors and combines this information to optimize state estimates. The result is an estimated world map to be used in vehicle navigation and obstacle avoidance.

The simulation handles the physics behind the vehicle flight. As …

Customizing Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks To Individual Drivers And Traffic Conditions, Ali Rakhshan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation studies the ability to individualize vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) in order to improve safety. Adapting a VANET to both its individual drivers' characteristics and traffic conditions enables it to transmit in a smart manner to other vehicles. This improvement is now possible due to the progress that is being made in VANETs. To accomplish this adaptation, our approach is to use VANET data to learn drivers' characteristics. This information along with the traffic data, can be used to customize the VANETs to individual drivers. In this dissertation, we show that this process benefits all the drivers by …

Software Updates To A Multiple Autonomous Quadcopter Search System (Maqss), Jared Speck, Toby Chan

Computer Engineering

A series of performance-based and feature implementation software updates to an existing multiple vehicle autonomous target search system is outlined in this paper. The search system, MAQSS, is designed to address a computational power constraint found on modern autonomous aerial platforms by separating real-time and computationally expensive tasks through delegation to multiple multirotor vehicles. A Ground Control Station (GCS) is also described as part of the MAQSS system to perform the delegation and provide a low workload user interface. Ultimately, the changes to MAQSS noted in this paper helped to improve the performance of the autonomous search mission, the accuracy …

Sensor Characterization And Signal Fusion For Instanteye, Wyman T. Smith

Honors Theses and Capstones

The practicality and effectiveness of using a TerraRanger Duo—a parallel sonar and infrared time-of-flight distance sensor—payload for obstacle detection is investigated for use with Physical Science Inc.’s InstantEye drone. A Python program was developed to interface with the serial data output before comparing the sensor’s empirical performance against its data sheet. The two signals from the distinct sensor modules, each with their characterized strengths and weaknesses, were then fused with a Kalman filter. This was further refined by imposing conditional weighting based on the known sensor characteristics. The filter output, with conditional corrections, was able to accurately track a single …

Robostock: Autonomous Inventory Tracking, Drew Christian Balthazor

Computer Engineering

No abstract provided.

Android Drone: Remote Quadcopter Control With A Phone, Aubrey John Russell

Computer Engineering

The purpose of the “Android Drone” project was to create a quadcopter that can be controlled by user input sent over the phone’s Wi-Fi connection or 4G internet connection. Furthermore, the purpose was also to be able to receive live video feedback over the internet connection, thus making the drone an inexpensive option compared to other, equivalent drones that might cost thousands of dollars. Not only that, but the Android phone also has a host of other useful features that could be utilized by the drone: this includes GPS, pathing, picture taking, data storage, networking and TCP/IP, a Java software …

Tilt-Rotor Drone, Benjamin Stone, Zachary Crandall

Electrical Engineering

A drone is defined a "an unmanned aircraft that can fly autonomously[2]." In the year 2016, there exist many applications for small scale drones. Drones, having had primarily military applications, now have use in hobby robotics, photography, and even in surveying. But drones have not yet been perfected and still have room for much improvement. Several problems with drones come in the form of battery life, stability, and size. Large drones can fit many sensors and probes, but are heavy and have less flight time. For autonomous drones, stability can be an issue even though there exist many stable drones. …

Electric Commuter Multicopter, Marley Hunter Miller, Blake Sperry, Ike Sheppard, Olliver Fredrick Kunz, Sam Juday, Alex O'Hearn, Kyle Seth Kruse, Arthur Norwood, Jarrell Washington

Mechanical Engineering

This document describes the design, analysis, and overall goals of the Electric Commuter Multicopter (ECM) Senior Project. It was presented by Bob Addis and Bill Burner to the senior mechanical engineering class of 2015 at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. The progress and development of the project are described in detail and to an extent that an individual or group with similar aspirations can construct their own multicopter or expand upon this one. The goal of this project is to create an Ultralight, as defined by FAA Part 103, commuter multicopter vehicle capable of transporting an individual to and from …

Unmanned Aircraft Systems Image Collection And Computer Vision Image Processing For Surveying And Mapping That Meets Professional Needs, James Preston Peterson Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

"Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are rapidly blurring the lines between traditional and close range photogrammetry, and between surveying and photogrammetry. UAS are providing an economic platform for performing aerial surveying on small projects. The focus of this research was to describe traditional photogrammetric imagery and Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) geospatial products, describe close range photogrammetry (CRP), introduce UAS and computer vision (CV), and investigate whether industry mapping standards for accuracy can be met using UAS collection and CV processing. A 120-acre site was selected and 97 aerial targets were surveyed for evaluation purposes. Four UAS flights of varying heights …