A new expedition, a new face on the ice Anonymous Monday, January 12, 2015

This year, Professor Len Gillman, Head of School, has gone down to Antarctica, taking with him two modified Fox UAVs.  No doubt, Len will bring back lots of photographs and reports of the data collecting activities in the Taylor Valley.

The modifications to the Fox include battery upgrades for longer endurance and built-in redundancy in the control surface servos.  Failure of one elevon servo could cause the loss of the aircraft, or at least, deployment of the emergency parachute.  That would require a retrieve crew to find and recover the aircraft.  The last known position of the aircraft could be recovered from the GCS data log, but retrieval of the aircraft could involve a significant hike over the relatively difficult terrain.

Skycam UAV has split the elevons and fitted servos to each half, ensuring that a single failure would not cause the loss of the aircraft or an aborted mission.

A new multispectral camera has also been added to the sensor suite.  Similar to the vegetation stress camera, this unit can collect images in four bands, including infra-red.

In preparation for his deployment, Len spent some time with Skycam UAV personnel, working on the  systems and flying the Fox in D522, our regular test flying area in the Wairarapa.

Prof. Len Gillman and Dr. Tim Brooks during training in D522

Advanced training Anonymous Sunday, May 18, 2014

This week, Prof. John spent two days with Skycam UAV in Danger Area 522 doing some advanced training with the Fox UAV.

Drawing on its military origins, the Fox can act as an aerial relay station for communication between two ground control stations.  By the same token, the aircraft can be controlled from either GCS, while the non-controlling unit can monitor the flight.

On the first day, the Fox, now fitted with larger capacity batteries was launched and flown locally from our regular airfield on a farm in D522.  Text communication between two GCS units was tested and control was handed back and forth before the aircraft was landed.  When we took off, the Fox measured the wind speed at between 25 and 30 kph, but by the end of the flight, it was gusting 50kph.  The Fox was able to deal with this, but the conditions would not be suitable for collecting good images.  Lew Woods of Skycam decided to land the Fox in Partial Control mode - the operator has control over heading and throttle setting, while the autopilot assists by stabilising the aircraft.

On the second day, the conditions were much more gentle and Dr. Tim and Prof. John launched the Fox from our regular airfield  in D522, while the away team of Rene and Lew headed to Lew's farm on the edge of D522.  The Fox flew around the airfield conducting a photo survey before we commanded a new waypoint overhead Lew's farm.  The away team were informed that the Fox was en route and they monitored the progress of the flight on their own GCS.  As the Fox flew over the waypoint, we put our GCS into 'Listen' mode and the away team captured the aircraft and took control for the landing.

After a battery change, the Fox was relaunched, conducted a photo reconnaisance of Lew's farm and then sent back to our location.  The procedure was reversed and we took control of the Fox about 1000m out from the target, bringing the aircraft down for a conventional parachute recovery.

The exercise was a total success, with one or two lessons learned about the actual handover process and message relay.  A nice little surprise awaited us as we recovered the Fox and opened the hatch to turn the systems off.  Nestling inside the fuselage was a note with a message "Greetings from the A-team".  Perhaps a rather expensive way of delivering a smiley face, but a nice touch!

Preparations Anonymous Monday, January 06, 2014

We have finished our Antarctic Field Skills course, capped last night by a camp out at Castle Rock, about 30 minutes' travel from Scott Base.  It is such a privilege to be here in this spectacular place.

We returned to Scott Base this morning and since then we have been preparing for our deployment on Thursday.  I have checked the UAVs and GCSs and run some simulations.  This was not 100% successful and has caused me some concern.  Fortunately, we have e-mail access to NZ from the base, so I was able to dicuss the problem with Dr. Tim Brooks of Skycam UAV.  We appear to have sorted it out.

Tomorrow I will weigh all the equipment cases to determine the total weight for the helicopter loading calculations.

I hope that the batteries, systems and cameras of the UAS will deal with the cold temperature. According to the manufacturers' data, we should be alright. Another concern is the possibility that the bungee rubber could become brittle in the cold.

Though not strictly a UAV subject, I have attached a picture of the stunning view from my tent this morning at 06.00  It was much the same last night at 23.30 though the sky was much clearer.  At 23.30 last night, the air temperature was 1C, but it was 17C in my tent, the result of the sun shining brightly.  This morning it was around -1C, but the wind made it seem quite a lot colder.

 

View from my tent 06.00

Equipment going South Anonymous Sunday, December 22, 2013

A computer glitch has meant that Prof. John B. has been locked out of this blog for the last fortnight.  After many frustrating attempts, access has been restored.

This comes just in time: the Hawk and GCS have both been sent to the Antarctica New Zealand base in Christchurch for transport down to the ice.  Our new Fox UAV and a spare GCS have also been sent to Christchurch.

Skycam UAV have been very generous sponsors of our research, loaning us spare wings, repair items, replacement spars, batteries and motor, together with a complete GCS, so that should we have problems down there, we can continue to collect data.

Prof. John B will travel to the ice to take part in the K020 deployment as part of the New Zealand Terrestrial Antarctic Biodiversity Survey, using the UAVs to collect data on cyanobacterial mats in the Taylor dry valley.  This is a proof-of-concept project.  Using the vegetation stress camera and the two Sony NEX5-N cameras, the UAVs will survey the lake margins.  This is all new to John; he is a microbiologist, but has never worked on cyanobacteria, nor has he been to Antarctica before, so the 3 to 4 week deployment will be a steep learning curve.  This has been complicated by the unfortunate accident in which the AUT project leader broke his ankle, which ruled him out of travel to Antarctica this year.  However, if all goes well, the UAVs may be depolyed in future expeditions.

Since leaving Auckland, John has spent two days with Dr. Tim Brooks of Skycam UAV, training on the Fox.  The Fox is rather different from the Hawk, being a tailless aircraft, and is considerably easier to operate.  A different pre-flight checklist is used, but the GCS software is exactly the same, so type conversion is very straightforward.  As usual when John goes to the Manawatu, the weather conditions were not very conducive to UAV operation, but Tim and John achieved six training flights, collecting a large number of nIR and RGB images of part of the D522 area in Pahiatua.  The next flights will be down on the ice.  At least there are no trees there!

John hopes to keep colleagues and other interested UAV operators informed of the progress of the project via this website.

First data collection sortie Anonymous Monday, May 27, 2013

Friday 24th May 2013 saw another major milestone met.  We took the AUT Hawk to a location close to a patch of native bush to collect RGB and nIR images.

Our intention is that these images will be integrated with ground truthing data collected by students using a handheld spectroradiometer.

Not everything went according to plan, but we learned a great deal about our operations and in the process carried out further training for Barbara, who had been unable to come out on field trips with us since September 2012.

Planning for the sortie began the previous week, and John B spent a day preparing the UAS and programming a series of photographic transects to be flown by the Hawk.  Using the Hawk simulator, it appeared that the flights would collect images from overlapping transects for later analysis.

The day was perfect for our operation - bright sunshine with wind approximately 5kph and forecast for only occasional showers.

First lesson:  follow the checklist in its entirety.  As a pilot, John B knows the importance of this and pointed out that the team had jumped a couple of steps.  This became apparent after the first launch, when the aircraft went into navigation mode but failed to commence photography.  The aircraft was recovered and we found that the software was looking for the FLIR camera, rather than the Sony NEX5-N.

Second lesson:  after a photographic sortie, check the results before a second flight.  After we returned to AUT, John B removed the SD-RAM card from the camera to download the images, only to find two nIR photographs, rather than the 200 or so that we expected.  Clearly, we still have a programming issue with the automatic camera triggering.

After the flights, we conducted a short debriefing, picking out important points for improvements in future operations.  This was good practice for the team.  We hope to repeat the exercise this week with greater success.  A careful review of the programming and testing of the camera operation will be required before further flight.

In the mean time, the team will be updating their logbooks to reflect the new hours flown.

Below are a few pictures from the field trip.

 John B running through the pre-flight checklist.  Note the hi-tech paper rubbish sack sun screen around the computer monitor!

 John R testing the pitot tube operation

John R prepares to launch the Hawk while Barbara operates the GCS

Barbara monitors the progress of the flight on the telemetry screen

First independent operation Anonymous Wednesday, April 10, 2013

We passed another milestone today.  The two Johns took the Hawk to the North Shore Model Aero Club flying site and conducted two flights.  This is the first time we have flown the Hawk unsupervised.

We decided to conduct simple flights - takeoff, fly to two or three turnpoints programmed during the flight and return to the field for an automated landing.  The Hawk carried the Mintron video camera.

In preparation for our research on New Zealand plant species diversity, we flew along the edge of an area of bush before recalling the aircraft to the launchpoint.

I have to admit to some relief when the parachute deployed properly and the Hawk floated down for a safe landing close to the GCS and within the boundary of the airfield.

Our next sortie will carry the Sony NEX5-N NIR camera and we will collect images along a transect of the bush.

Flight time - at last! Anonymous Saturday, March 16, 2013

Taking advantage of a visit to the old homestead, Prof. John B. was able to spend two days training with Skycam UAV systems engineer, Dr. Tim Brooks.

Using our own unique ground control station, we prepared one of the Skycam test aircraft.  It's been a long time since our ground school, but working through the checklist, it all came back.

We were in D522, the Skycam UAV testing area, where we could fly up to 2500 feet and out of visual contact.  This danger area was the subject of a NOTAM; before the first flight and at intervals, we broadcast a warning to general aviation that Skycam was conducting unmanned aircraft operations.  As the aircraft headed off, following its pre-programmed flightpath, it was rather scary, but Tim wanted me to experience the feelings when the aircraft disappears from sight and you are totally dependent on the autopilot, telemetry and video downlink.

On the first day, we did two flights of around 50 minutes each.  The Hawk sensor bay was fitted with a GoPro.  This camera has a wide angle lens and can record about an hour of HD video. Our other sensors - Sony NEX5-N, Mintron 2-axis video and FLIR - will produce much flatter, less distorted images.

After launch, the Hawk circled the launch point at 850ft agl until commanded to fly to the quarry (see previous post).  The altitude was reset to 1100 ft and the Hawk flew to the quarry.  Then I followed a river to a new waypoint, using the computer to designate intermediate points.  After approximately 40 minutes, the Hawk was commanded to return to the launch point, where we reset altitude in decreasing steps, until we initiated the automatic landing mode (engine off, parachute deployed).  At this point, a thermal kicked off and the Hawk landed rather further away from the GCS than we would have liked.

After a battery change and new checklist, we flew for another 45 minutes.

The following day, the conditions were again ideal for flying and I was put through many of the procedures required to conduct flights and aerial data collection - handle launch, check footprint of stills camera, plan track to acquire a series of stills on a transect etc.  Finally, taking control of the Hawk in heading stabilised mode, I brought the aircraft down over the GCS, killed the throttle and deployed the parachute.  The Hawk landed 30 metres away from the GCS.

I have rather crudely edited a small composite video to show launch, flight and recovery phases.  The video is highly compressed to make it manageable for the Internet, but I think it shows clearly the potential of the Hawk for monitoring plants and animals.  The GoPro picked up quite a lot of motor and servo noise from the Hawk, but on the ground it is almost impossible to hear the aircraft as it flies overhead.

We also appear to have shown that the Earth is spherical and really quite small!

I have several times tried without success to upload the video clip mentioned above.  You can see it at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mYxMRxa-i0 

Airtime! Anonymous Friday, September 14, 2012

At last, we have had a day without rain or high winds.

We took the Hawk to the North Shore Model Aircraft field and did two flights under the direction of Dr. Tim Brooks.  The field itself was very wet, but the sky was clear and the wind only about 10 kph.

After setting up the GCS, assembling the aircraft and doing the pre-takeoff checks, Tim launched the Hawk and we flew for about 40 minutes, programming orbits, waypoints and loiter points.  The parachute recovery went well, the aircraft landed gently and avoided the surface water.

The short video clip shows the actual catapult launch.  The controller calls to the aircraft handler "Clear prop", handler responds "Prop clear"; controller: "Takeoff mode entered" and the GCS commands "Takeoff mode".  The motor winds up and the controller checks that full power is maintained and calls "Launch", whereupon the  handler releases the aircraft.  The catapult yoke falls away and after a slight dip, the aircraft climbs.  The controller waits for the system to report "Takeoff", confirming that the autopilot has established control.  At this point, the controller can manually steer the aircraft if necessary to avoid obstructions, though an ideal launch site should have none.

Then it was our turn.  Again the pre-takeoff checks were performed (this is necessary before every flight, even if the aircraft has flown only minutes before).  This time, John R. was the controller, John B. the handler.    Again, the aircraft took off and flew flawlessly for about 25 minutes, the video camera was turned on and the on-board system recorded the flight.  The aircraft was automatically recovered by parachute.  Though the wind had dropped, a sudden gust, probably a thermal taking off, caused the touchdown point to be about 100m away from the target area - a bit closer to the fence than we would have liked.

After the successful trial, the aircraft and GCS were packed into the Pelican Storm cases and returned to AUT.  Post flight procedures included examination of the aircraft for damage, recharging of flight and GCS batteries and, of course, the paperwork to log the flights.

The video card was removed from the aircraft and the video downloaded for examination.  One thing is clear - the amount of data generated in a single flight is going to require a lot of analysis.

Kahu Hawk training - final day Anonymous Saturday, September 08, 2012

What a bust!  Our ground training is all done and each day we hoped to go out and fly, but the Manawatu weather defeated us.  We had learned from Day 3 that the wind in the UAV flying area could be deceiving.  John B, as a glider pilot, recognised the signs when he opened the curtains first thing - clouds moving quickly and trees showing significant movement.  So our final day involved more simulations of photographic runs and a discussion of how to deal with link loss and other emergencies.

We also had an opportunity to meet with Rene Redmond, Managing Director of Skycam UAV, to discuss deployment of our Hawk, details of aircraft under development and possible alternative sensor options for our machine.

Dr. Tim Brooks will be in Auckland next week and, weather permitting, we are hoping to arrange some flight training with the Hawk at the North Shore Model Aircraft Club.

We flew back to Auckland with our heads full of plans for the future and were relieved not to hear "Gyro clipped" when the aircraft rotated for takeoff!

Unknown Friday, September 07, 2012

The AUT UAV team upon completion of our ground training course! 

 Our instructor, Dr. Tim Brooks, was persuaded to join us for this shot

Kahu Hawk Training - day four Unknown Thursday, September 06, 2012

We woke up early to the sounds of strong winds buffeting our bookabach and we realised we wouldn't be flying today. Although disappointed we had plenty to do in the workshop. Dr Tim Brooks continued the advanced training at the Skycam base and we spent the day working on mission planning. We realised how many things go into planning a safe and successful mission.  Fortunately all we were risking today was a few pixels. As a part of our training scenarios, Dr John R took manual control of the UAV and within a few moments we were metaphorically scraping bits of the plane off the screen...  However, after a few attempts he was a pro at flying emergency scenarios. I was most impressed with my ability to lay out a perfect transect, however, I sadly discovered my entire plan was below ground level; you certainly have to watch the gauges. 

Key lesson learned today - the process of using a UAV for scientific research requires very careful planning and checking in order to have a successful flight! Its not just about flying the aircraft, it is also about making sure you are familiar with your study area, that your sensors are correctly set up and formatted, and you have allowed for variation in wind speed, direction, hazards, contours, and you have followed all pre-flight checks. 

Kahu Hawk Training - days two and three Unknown Wednesday, September 05, 2012

On day two we arrived early, ready for action. Our first task was to assemble the ground control station, the aircraft and successfully complete the entire pre flight checks, and all of that on our own! We succeeded and then progressed to the more advanced modules of our training book. We learned how to plan a flight with waypoints using the built in maps and also in ArcGIS, we also learned how to program operations zones to restrict our areas of study. We then reviewed all of the voice commands and discovered the meaning of some of the more elaborate terms. By the end of the day we were slightly overwhelmed, so much to learn in such a short time!

Day three dawned bright and clear and we felt ready for take off! However, driving over to the UAV flying area, John B observed that maybe the wind was too strong and he suggested that we might not be flying, given that the car was being buffeted across the road and the trees were laying over! When we arrived on site, we measured the wind and it was blowing a steady 48 to 50 kph which was well above our maximum wind speed of 25kph. The airstrip was on top of a ridge and it was interesting to note that just behind the ridge there were patches of calm and varying wind directions, yet when you looked up at the clouds, the clouds were hurtling along. Clearly the conditions were not suitable for flying, so after a few moments of disappointment we made the most of the situation and practiced assembling and dismantling the system in windy outdoor conditions. Thanks goodness John B wore his wet weather gear, as the ground was very wet!  We took turns being the mission commander, shouting instructions (I quite enjoyed this role) and running through the preflight checklist, the ground station controller and the UAV handler. We even practiced using the bungy launch system, which was certainly not as easy as it looks when the experts do it. We all had a go, and by the end of the morning we certainly felt more confident!

We returned to SkyCAM after lunch and Lew gave us a demonstration on how to repair the airframe 
in the field and also back at the home base for more permanent repairs. These airframes are 
incredibly durable and robust, and relatively easy to repair (depending on the severity of the damage).

We are all looking forward to day four, and to getting up in the air!

The team assembling the ground control system (GCS)

Tim teaching John how to use the bungy launch system

John assembling the airframe

Kahu Hawk Training - day one Unknown Monday, September 03, 2012

Day one at Palmerston North - Skycam training centre.

Today the team woke bright and early and headed out to Skycam where we were met by our trainer and Systems Integrator, Dr Tim Brooks. After a look around the warehouse and a quick glimpse at the new Kahu, Tim commenced the training with a safety induction and provided us with a thorough list of safety checks for flight planning (eg. Don't put your fingers into the whirly bit in the front). We then focussed on the structure of the airframe and learned how to assemble and disassemble the aircraft. We learned how the airframe was constructed and the navigation system and autopilot installed. We were taken through each step in the assembly of the system prior to flying.  Believe it or not, that took most of the day! It's a very complex system with some amazing feats of engineering.  We also learned how to assemble the base station and ran through several basic simulation flights. The most exciting part of the day was running through the check list, testing the autopilot, and testing the throttle and seeing our new video camera sending signal to the base station screen! We finished the day learning how to repackage our parachutes, some of us were better at it than others!