Wednesday 30 September 2015

Fungus drone

An interesting idea, 'bio-degradable' drones. This one has been constructed from a fungus in a mould lab! Seems to be partially designed to reduce carbon footprint, but also so an intelligence drone will degrade if it crashes and leave no trace.



Great closing line from the author,

"Trying to reduce our footprint on the environment is great, but methinks that a puddle of fungal goop with propellers sticking out of it might still be a giveaway that someone's been spying."

Monday 14 September 2015

Sunday Business Post

Lots of pics taken of the whole team but we were cropped out. Probably best as we all were wearing identical shirts....Good to see Tim and the team getting the exposure though. interesting choice of cropping in this photo too - the black drone in-shot costs about €1k whereas the barely visible orange, Bramor costs tens of €thousands and looks way cooler.

Drone research takes off at Maynooth

03:55, 13 September 2015 by Margaret O'Brien

Dr Tim McCarthy of Maynooth University tests out a drone
By 2020 the civilian drone market could be worth between $5 billion to $15 billion, so it’s hardly surprising that the number of drone patents filed in recent years has risen exponentially. Dr Tim McCarthy and his research team at the National Centre for Geocomputation at Maynooth University are ensuring that Ireland isn’t behind the research curve.
“Our core drone research infrastructure is funded by Science Foundation Ireland [SFI] and we also have a number of R&D projects funded by government agencies and industry,” said McCarthy.
Drone research at Maynooth is carried out across three key areas: mapping and monitoring; safety and regulatory; and emergency support.
“With mapping and monitoring we are using multispectral, hyperspectral and thermal sensors with applications in areas such as oil pollution, in partnership with the Petroleum Infrastructure Programme; precision agriculture, in partnership with Teagasc; coastal mapping with the Marine Institute and NUI Galway, marine and offshore monitoring through SFI’s research centre; and iCrag and forestry through another SFI funded project, in partnership with Treemetrics.
“We usually integrate satellite remote sensing, such as the latest European Space Agency Sentinel platform sensors with drone optical imaging for best results.”
Solutions being researched in safety and regulatory involve risk impact modeling for safe drone operation. The applications focus on the promotion of safe and responsible operation of drones.
“We are providing research support to the recent international start-up company, Verifly – headed by ex-Hailo founder and chief executive Jay Bregman – in developing 4D geofencing. This is essentially a four-dimensional geospatial technology that helps drone operators stay clear of no-fly zones.
“The third area sees us investigate how drone platforms can be utilised to support a variety of emergency and disaster scenarios, such as search and tracking with the Irish coast guard.”
According to McCarthy: “The advantages of drone technology are obvious, because what you have is accessible, affordable, automated airborne technology which can be applied to a range of sectors including natural resource management, critical infrastructure mapping, environmental monitoring, logistics, and disaster management.
However, he conceded the growth in popularity of drones presents its own challenges in terms of regulation, safety and privacy concerns. It is estimated that there are 2.5 million drone enthusiasts globally, with 800,000 plus in Europe. There are an estimated 10,000 commercial remotely piloted aircraft systems operators globally, 4,000 of which are in Europe, accounting for 1.5 million sorties.
“The drone consumer market is doubling, if not tripling each year. The drone enthusiast market for 2015 is set to top $1.7 billion with the US, Europe and Asia the largest markets. Opportunities to develop drone applications are growing in tandem.
“Research is required in areas such as downstream information products, and services such as mapping, monitoring and real-time videography – especially for marine, agriculture, forestry, infrastructure and environment sectors.
“Drones can be effectively deployed in emergency and disaster situations, humanitarian aid and support, law enforcement, security, land surveying, utilities, maritime, environmental monitoring, news gathering, entertainment, social and recreational events, real estate, safety inspection, logistics, parcel delivery, specialised transport, locate and track objects, gaming and so the list goes on.”
He identified drone research opportunities for Ireland as being centred on three key areas, namely, primary drone technologies. such as safety and data sensing technology; drone support service, such as regulatory, privacy and training; and potentially the largest area drone data analytics and geo-information services.
“We can certainly compete internationally in some of these emerging niche sector areas,” he added.
The fledgling Irish drone industry has already received strong support from the Irish Aviation Authority, SFI, Enterprise Ireland, government agencies with wider interest as demonstrated by the recently formed Unmanned Aircraft Association of Ireland and the forthcoming Drone Data X Conference scheduled for November 6 to 8 in Mayo.
“What’s required now is to develop a drone ecosystem in Ireland,” McCarthy said.
“Firstly, carry out a market review of the broader drone industry as it relates to all Irish stakeholders, and from there we need to develop a dedicated strategic research, technology, development and innovation plan for the drone Industry in Ireland.
“We need a working group to be established capable of exploiting this technology to our benefit. A dedicated drone flight-test site is required and finally, we need targeted funding to underpin its success,” McCarthy said.

Thursday 10 September 2015

Duct Tape

There is a great line in Gran Torino where Clint Eastwood explains the relevance of Duct Tape for almost everything. Well duct tape plays a large role in R&D too. Here it is on the XP1 forming the outside cover of an early-stage sensor pod, keeping the cables under control in the interior, holding a GPS receiver to the dash, and helping route cables through doors with minimum damage. We considered 3D printing the mounts but my experiences with the 3D printer in Maynooth University library scuppered that.




This is the Experimental Platform 1 (XP1), our Mobile Mapping System (MMS). Most of my academic journal papers up until now have covered this in some shape or form and my PhD thesis related to creating a method for system performance assessment. Don't let the duct tape fool you - it is just there for expediency. There is some serious kit on the XP1:

1. An IXSEA LandINS on the back provides navigation info through periods of GNSS outage and allows you to record and georeference data captured in tunnels. We were working in the Dublin Port Tunnel yesterday, traffic was delayed - if you were delayed, then blame us :) But it is for your safety, and to improve that.

2. Beside the IXSEA is a GNSS receiver.

3. At the rear right wheel is a Distance Measurement Unit (DMI). This is a survey grade odometer which can be used to help control drift in the INS. The Zero Velocity Updates (ZUPTS) that this provides tell the INS when the vehicle is at a complete halt. Any movement it is measuring is therefore drift and can be compensated for.

4. The Duct Tape box at the front right is an Agrosensor, a multispectral camera recording in G,R and 2x NIR.

5. The front middle sensor is a cheapo Go-Pro for recording video.

6. The front left sensor is a thermal camera.

7. There is also a roadhawk inside the front window.

The Riegl VQ-250, a 2D laser scanner capable of 300,000 measurements each second was not used in this survey. It usually sits up beside the IXSEA and GNSS antenna. I've been working with satellite and drone imagery so much over the last three years that I have not been helping out as much with the MMS surveys. Good to see it again.

Wednesday 2 September 2015

Relativity and GNSS Satellites.

I saw 'Interstellar' a few months back in the IMax. Excellent film. 

There is a scene in it (spoiler alert) where the shuttle arrives at a planet that is orbiting a dwarf star, or some such object that exhibits a massive gravitational pull. The crew debate and briefly explain the issue of relativity before going down to the surface. Time passes more slowly depending on gravity, and this is dependant on your proximity to the body exhibiting the gravititational pull. During the 15 minutes spent by the four crew on the planet surface the single crew member left on the shuttle in orbit will experience about 1 year and have aged accordingly. To cut a long story short, the crew that go down to the planet run into trouble, get knocked around by a few waves and barely get away with their lives.



Understandably this has delayed them slightly and when they get up to the ship the guy who was left has aged by about 20 years. See, he has a beard.



The maths behind this is beyond me but the principle was pretty easy to follow during the movie. I was left very entertained and thinking how it will never effect me, right? Obviously I'm unlikely to be orbiting a massive star or part of a planetary exploration mission anytime soon.

Wrong.

I came across a very real surveying example only a few weeks after seeing the movie. GNSS satellites must be able to tell their time to extremely high tolerances and there are atomic clocks on board each satellite for this very reason. However, due to the proximity to the body emitting the larger gravitation pull, 1 second recorded by the clock on earth is slower than 1 second recorded by the clock on a satellite. Added to this, the direction the satellite orbits around the large body exhibiting the gravitational pull can also add or subtract to the effect. The bottom line is that the two clocks will diverge by 38 microseconds per day and this has to be built into the satellite clock when calibrating it before launch!

More info here and here for anyone interested.



About Me

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My name is Conor. I am a Lecturer at the Department of Geography at Maynooth University. These few lines will (hopefully) chart my progress through academia and the world of research.