Turnigey 9x

To control the servo on the drone we required a 9 channel remote receiver. We currently only have a 6 channel remote receiver. We bought the Turnigy 9x 9ch Transmitter w/ Module & 8ch Receiver which has the capabilities to control the servo and control the drone.

We have created a method to attach and detach the power flare from our drone remotely. We are using a pin on the drone that will slide into a whole in the power flare that will allow the drone to carry the power flare. The pin is controlled by a servo connected to ardu pilot so that it can release the flare at any time.

Drone Location Test

To test that the drone can move to a location and drop the power flare we are going to create bluetooth beacons that the drone will travel to and drop the power flare. The bluetooth beacons will be our computer/phone connected to a bluetooth module(GlobalSat BT-3681 Bluetooth GPS Receiver). In theory the drone should fly to the beacon and drop the power flare. We are going to use this t test the range of the drone and how far away it will drop the power flare.

The method we are using is from this follow me example (http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/ac2_followme.html) 

Techshop Meeting

On February 26th our group visited Pittsburgh Techshop to have a meeting with Ryan Bates on the current status of our project and the future of what we will be doing. In the meeting, we discussed how we would distribute power across the drone using only one battery. He recommended the LM7805 linear regulator to distribute power from the battery of the drone into other features of our project, including the radio receiver and the servo to drop the power flare. More importantly, we discussed the mission plan of the drone when put into the avalanche zone. First the drone will roam the avalanche zone until it detects a radio signal from the emergency beacon the victim has on the beacon. When it enters the radius of the radio signal it will begin roam inside the radio signal radius area while recording the current strength of the signal. When it completes roaming the area it will move to the area where the radio strength was the strongest and drops the power flare. At any point if the done drops below 15% battery then it will return to "home base" and exit the avalanche zone. Our data can be seen in the picture below along with the mission plan. Big thanks to Ryan Bates for being such a huge help.

New version of Power flare with power

Shell Structure
We have begun working on a smaller and more efficient version of the power flare. As seen in the picture below the size has been reduced greatly and a hook whole has been added to the top of the flare. The hook whole is there so that the flare can be attached to the drone by a hook suspending it in the air until the hook releases the flare onto the ground.


Method of power:
The LED's will be lit by a 9 volt battery that is contained on the inside of shell. To turn the LED's off and on we have reverse engineered the switch to a battery holder and applied it to the LED strip and the 9 volt battery. To attach the switch to our battery we had to sauder the power strips negative wire to the ground of the switch, an connect the single wire of the switch to negative of the 9v battery. Then connect the power wire of the LED strip to the battery.

Drone Configuration

We are attaching an Ardu Pilot 2.5 to our drone and have began configuring it. To atactch the drone to the Arduino we first had to change battery connecters to the ones that fit the drone. The correct battery connecter for our drone was the X-T60s. We changed the connecter on the 11v lithium Ion battery to fit the X-T60 connecter.

Flare Prototype.

We have finished the first prototype of the power flare that will be attached to our drone. The structure of the flare is a 3d printed shell that hold s a 9 volt alkaline battery. On the outside of the shell is a string of LED's that display a red flash. The flare will be connected to the drone through servos with 3d printed wings that will suspend the power flare onto the drone and keep it from falling.

A.R.C Abstract

A.R.C Abstract

Chances of surviving an avalanche burial if located under fifteen minutes are 92%; These chances are diminished to 30% at thirty five minutes as victims begin to succumb to acute asphyxiation. Currently, avalanche fatalities have been steadily increasing with 324 fatal avalanches killing 440 people in the past 50 years. In the past 30 years, no technological advances in avalanche rescue have been made which have contributed to a decrease of the mortality rates of avalanches.

The goal of the A.R.C(Autonomous Rescue Companion) project is to invent a product which will lead to the decrease of deaths due to avalanche accidents. In order to reach this goal we are taking the approach of being able to locate the victim before rescue teams arrive, thus allowing rescue teams to retrieve the victim in a reduced time span. We are headed towards creating a drone which achieves this. The drone will be able to roughly locate the victim by receiving the signal from their emergency beacon if it is on the skier/hiker’s person. After the drone has approximated the location of the victim, it will then paint the area using an attached spray paint can to apprise the rescue teams of the location.

The final results of A.R.C should lead to a decrease in the rescue time of avalanche teams, thus making victims of avalanches have a greater chance of surviving the accident. This project should conclude with a theoretical decrease in the mortality rates of avalanches.

Flare progress

We have begun working on the design of the flare by first creating a prototype of where the LED's will be placed and will then make a 3d model of the case for the LED's. We are also working on the mechanism for dropping the flare.

New Method

Our new method for informing the rescue team on the victims locations is using a power flare. We will be making an LED flare based on the design of a power flare, (http://pfdistributioncenter.com/). The case for the flare will be 3d printed and inside will be high power LED's that will illuminate the snow and make it easy for the rescue team to find the victim. The flare will be delivered by the drone by a mechanism that will cause the drone to lower near the surface of the ground then drop the flare onto the snow.

Spray Can Update

To lower the amount of voltage needed to push down hard enough to activate the spray can, we attempted to change the type of can to see if it lowers voltage needed. We purchased a small spray can and a large spray can with a attachable trigger to make the can fire easier. When testing to see if the voltage needed to fire the spray can was reduced, the smaller spray can's voltage was not reduced and the attachable trigger did not make it easier to use the spray can. We are moving to a new plan to give the rescue plan the avalanche victims location