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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Autonomous Uavs For Near Earth Environmental Sensing, David J. Anthony Dec 2016

Autonomous Uavs For Near Earth Environmental Sensing, David J. Anthony

Department of Computer Science and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are playing an increasing role in large scale environmental monitoring. Small UAVs are increasingly used to monitor agricultural fields, infrastructure projects, and disaster areas. The combination of their sensors, ease of use, and portability make them an ideal tool for collecting information on demand about geographic regions. These small UAVs do have several significant limitations. The UAVs have very limited autonomy and fly pre-determined flight paths far above the underlying terrain, limiting the spatial resolution of the collected data. Current battery technology severely limits their flight times, which in turn limits the temporal resolution of the …


Design, Testing And Evaluation Of Robotic Mechanisms And Systems For Environmental Monitoring And Interaction, James K. Higgins Aug 2016

Design, Testing And Evaluation Of Robotic Mechanisms And Systems For Environmental Monitoring And Interaction, James K. Higgins

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have significantly lowered the cost of remote aerial data collection. The next generation of UAVs, however, will transform the way that scientists and practitioners interact with the environment. In this thesis, we address the challenges of flying low over water to collect water samples and temperature data. We also develop a system that allows UAVs to ignite prescribed fires. Specifically, this thesis contributes a new peristaltic pump designed for use on a UAV for collecting water samples from up to 3m depth and capable of pumping over 6m above the water. Next, temperature sensors and their …


Flying By Fire: Making Controlled Burns Safer For Humans And Uavs, Rebecca Horzewski, Carrick Detweiler Apr 2016

Flying By Fire: Making Controlled Burns Safer For Humans And Uavs, Rebecca Horzewski, Carrick Detweiler

UCARE Research Products

A temperature sensing circuit board was developed that will allow Nimbus Lab's controlled burn starting UAV to react to the temperatures around it.