Week 8 Capstone Project Update

Week 8 Capstone Project Update

More work has been done on the CRM in UAS Applications poster. Research was done comparing the mobile applications made by Measure and Drone Log Book. Measures mobile application appeared superior to Drone Log Books, because of it's capability to plan flights and fly them in the app.

(Figure 18: Measure mobile app home page.)

As you can see from the home page above, the mobile application has the capability to check surrounding airspace, plan flight missions, and then fly these missions as well. All of the flight data will then be automatically connected to their website and saved there for later review. 

(Figure 19: Drone Log Book mobile app home page options.)

Drone Log Book's mobile app is also great for reviewing flights and other information such as your equipment, maintenance, and incident reports, but does not have a built in flight planning and flying application of its own.

(Figure 20: Measure mobile rules and advisories section)

(Figure 21: Measure mobile airspace map used for planning flights.)

The in app flight map helps users visualize where the flight is taking place, and assure that there are no advisories in the area. The interface for Measures mobile app was easy to learn and worked well on my mobile device. 

(Figure 22: Measure mobile app flight planning)

(Figure 23: Measure mobile app flight mode.)

Measure's Grid Flight was easy to learn and was easy to plan out a flight with. There were many options for adjusting the flight to fit the needs of the user such as adjustable flight path shape, speed settings, cross hatch settings, and others. After planning the flight, using the flight mode was simple and effective. I didn't fly a real mission (the weather has been terrible) but I was still able to look at the options I had if I was going to use the Measure mobile app to fly. 

Drone Log Book has useful information on the mobile app, basically everything you can find on their website, but is lacking the capability to plan and fly a mission using their application. In order to fly missions you need another application to plan and fly, and then transfer the date to Drone Log Book. Measure on the other hand, can do the entire process all the way through from start to finish, planning, flying, and storing data all in one application.  

Week 7 Capstone Project Update

Week 7 Capstone Project Update

This week we have been focused on our posters we will be submitting for SATT Student Poster Symposium. My group has been working hard to gather information we will be using on our CRM poster. We are working on a title but so far we have CRM in UAS Applications. The two applications we are focusing on are Drone Log Book, and Measure. (Figures 14 and 15 below).

Figure 14: The home page of Measure. 

Figure 15: The home page of Drone Log Book. 

Just from looking at, and comparing the home pages, my group was able analyze a few things. Measure looks a little more clean and is more user friendly. It is easier to find information on what you are looking for, and to keep organized. Drone Log Book is a little more cluttered and not as user friendly. It has more of a learning curve and is a little harder to find the information you are looking for. It does have a few more features and applications that Measure has not added yet. 

Purdue Drone Log Book

Pros:

• Lots of features
• Has Mobile App
• Has document section
• Integrates with other manufactures
• Bulk importing of flight data

Cons:

• Clustered Format
• Hard to find certain tools

Measure

Pros:

• Able to plan flights
• Has mobile app
• Clean looking application.

Cons

• Has no document section
• No maintenance section
• Not many features

Figure 16: Above is a Nexus that Drone Log Book as created about their application.

My group had started to format our information into a power point presentation. We have chosen a Purdue themed layout and started plugging in some figures we would like to include in our power point.

Figure 17: The layout of the CRM in UAS Applications Poster.

Week 5 and 6 Capstone Project Update

Week 5 and 6 Capstone Project Update

Our group has done a much better job being productive through the terrible weather we have been having. We have come up with 3 more class logos we will use for our documents and presentations. Our head author Krysta collected more sources for our paper, and worked on the outline as well. We did a class activity led by Kyle, our operations manager. We wanted to do a hypothetical dry run of a mission to see if we could think of all the factors and problems that could arise. As a class we went through this activity and took notes on Google Docs so that we could look back later and be prepared for real missions (Figure 12).


 We went into as much detail as possible, discussing what we wanted to mission to be about, what type of sensor and drone we would use for this mission, who would be flying, when we would be flying, and where the mission would take place according to our shape files. I think that the class prospered from a dry run mission like this because sometimes we don't think about important aspects of a mission until the day of the mission, which means we are not properly prepared for what we need to do.
Dylan, our GPS specialist has been finishing up the EMLID Reach survey checklist which we will need before flights. We have continued to do work on getting the M600 ready for flight, integrating payloads and preparing other aspects of the drone as well. The parachute team has been contently practicing their packs for the chute, perfecting the art. I believe they will be making a tutorial video soon with their knowledge they have gained in the past few weeks.
Because of the weather, we wanted to start work on our display case that I mentioned in last weeks update. But, we have been presented with another  opportunity which the class is excited to participate in. We have been invited to submit posters about our capstone project for a SATT Student Poster Symposium on Friday, 4/26/19. As a class we are planning on submitting 3 to 4 posters. I will be working with the operations manager Kyle, to make a poster on Crew Resource Management, and a comparison of applications used for UAS, specifically Drone Log Book and Measure. We have been taking notes and preparing information for what we want on our poster, which we are planning on working on in class next week (Figure 13).
  

Week 3 and 4 Capstone Update

Week 3 and 4 Capstone Project Update

These last few weeks have taught our team how to handle obstacles and hurdles that get in our way. Bad weather has been the theme, from 6 inches of snow over night, to temperatures so cold they shut down Purdue University for the first time in my college career, we've seen it all. Despite this we as a team are still making forward progress. Krysta has been hard at work working on our class logo. with a few adjustments and tweaks we should have something that perfectly captures our UAS team. She has also started writing the rough draft and outline of our research paper which is our whole goal of this project. We also have been working in class to finish checklist for the M600, and are finalizing mounting the X5 to the M600 (Figure 9,10,11).




We have been focusing a lot on checklists and platform setup for the M600 because I think this is going to be the first platform we utilize in our missions. Professor Hupy also went over some great information with Arc Collector. We have been utilizing that application, which we can also link to our mobile phones which will help in the field! I have a personal goal to start getting ready some material for one of our display cases here at in the NISW building. We as a class have been lucky enough to receive a reserved space where we can show off our work to the rest of the airport. I want to start planning out what we will be showing off, and get ideas from the class about what they would like to see in our display case. Hopefully, I can start updating this blog with photos of a display case that is slowly filling up!

Week 2 Capstone Project

Week 2 Capstone Project Update

Great progress has been made this week for our project! There have been a few set backs this week but I think the class has handled them well. Although the weather has been terrible, and there was a holiday on one of our works days, Monday, January 21, 2019, we as a class were still able to take steps to getting closer to our first flight this semester. All members of the group have worked hard to step forward in our process of this semesters mission. All members made great progress on their tasks. Members of the group are doing well falling into their roles that we decided at the end of last semester.
 As manager of this project I have been trying to be involved in all aspects of the project. My main goal right now is to make sure that progress is being made each week by each member of the team. I want to assure that we start collecting data soon and so I've been working hard to help organize and keep track of these early phases of planning. I worked with Krysta Rolle this week to create a Google Document for the class. Before this Google Document we were using One Drive, and I feel like the class wasn't taking advantage of it. With our new Google Doc, we were able to congregate weekly updates, checklists, flight documents, general notes, and class photos into one area! 
During our class meeting session on 1/16/19, we split up into our teams and worked on separate projects. After finishing my work with Krysta on the Google Doc, I went from group to group making sure everyone was making good progress with their work. 
Kyle and Evan worked on making a flight area shaping map, using Arcmap (Figure 4). They also worked on making a 5 letter identifier word doc to easily organize and label each flight shape (Figure 5). I also had Evan check on everyone's schedule to make sure everything lined up properly so that he could finalize our flight schedule for this semester. 
Ian and Todd had some exciting work to do in class! Professor Hupy taught them how to pack a parachute for one of our drones being used this semester. One of their responsibilities is to learn from him and a manual how to pack this parachute and be our experts for packing the chute for the rest of the semester. I took a few pictures of them packing it and a picture of their first pack as well, which was a success when tested (Figure 6 and 7)! 
Over all, although there was bad weather, and a holiday in this weeks session, I think that everyone did a great job staying on task. My goal for next week is to get a better deadline for when we will be able to start collecting data. I also want to start thinking of a backup plan in case the bad weather continues for a few more weeks, about what data we can collect and how we are going to collect it. 

Week 1 Capstone Project Update

Week one has officially started for our Capstone Project. Over winter break, as a class, we have gotten a lot of necessary preparation done. We have had a few class meetings to help organize this semester so far. Everyone has been doing a lot of work to prepare for our first flight. I am thinking it will be in the next few weeks. We still have a lot of work to do. As project manager on this team, I have tried to be involved as much as possible in all work being done. I have asked for weekly reports from the team so I know where we are in the project and I am in charge or relaying this information with professor Hupy. So far a lot has been done including: flight schedules, meta data formatting, development of file and data storage pathing, courtesy notice document formatting, payload integration, and a lot of other planning as well. We have had two class sessions, one on Monday 1/7 and one on Wednesday 1/9. Our first class session was familiarizing the class with what this semester will look like, and getting to know our new equipment. For class on 1/9 Evan Hockridge took point in data mapping, and meta data formatting. We then had time to complete tasks within our own teams. Kyle Sheehan and coordinated our goals for next week which includes ground point work and naming points on our amphitheater map. In class, I scribbled down some deliverables I'd like to see in the next few weeks as well as check lists that I know need to be completed before each flight. You can find those note in the figures and field notes sections of my blog!

Capstone AT419 Strategy Session
11/20/18

The first strategy session for our AT419 capstone class was held on Tuesday the 11th of November, 2018. For this session we wanted to figure out a few key elements of what the next semester would look like. We wanted to figure out what we were doing for this project, where we would do it, and start formulating what roles each member would have.
We discussed a few different options of where we are planning on doing our project. We talking about the Lafayette Amphitheater, and the Coyote Crossing Golf Club as two possible options for our location. We discussed possibly doing both of these locations and comparing our results. The majority of the class agreed the Lafayette Amphitheater should be the main focus because it includes multiple areas of interest and different terrain in one close area including: forest areas, fields, rivers, the amphitheater, and the parking lot around the amphitheater.
The proposed title of this project is "Understanding Key UAS fundamentals through Applied Research". The classed discussed different research that we could do at the park. We discussed some things we would like to possible do regarding data collection and analysis. Many of us were interested in flooding data and comparing the water levels around the area. The amphitheater is a great area for that because there are different elevations in the area which helps with this data collection. We discussed making a 3D model of the amphitheater itself which could be very interesting and unique. For this project we are looking for different sub-projects that will be helpful to the paper we want to right about applied research. Anything along the lines of data collection and using that data collection will help this paper be a success.
The hardest part of this discussion was figuring out what rolls each member of the class wanted to take. To start this process we discussed the a few essential skills we would like to learn or improve that we could make rolls out of. The 4 we decided on as a class were: management, Flight operations, Platform Maintenance, and Research literature/published writing skills. From those skills we started brainstorming about rolls or how we would all fit into rolls. We decided that we should each have a primary roll that most likely wouldn't rotate around, a secondary roll, which would rotate, and possibly 2 other minor rolls. This way the person in the primary roll would be able to teach others that were rotating into that roll, and the whole group wouldn't need to relearn everything each time we rotated jobs. The only exceptions that will not fit into the workflow would be management. There will only be one project manager and one operations manager at a time, and the operations manager will not rotate. That was all we had time for in that class period, but we met up outside of class at a restaurant with a professional setting, called the Stacked Pickled. As a group we talked about our main roles that we wanted. I wanted to get experience in management because it's what I am passionate about. I have taken on the roll of project manager. My roll is to make sure that all other rolls are working well together in a timely fashion and report that information back to Professor Hupy. I will be in charge of making some dead lines for deliverables and overseeing that work gets done when it was suppose to be. Our other manager will be Kyle who is taking the role of Operation Manager. He will be in charge of scheduling people to gather data and deciding who flies what drone with what payload. Dylan will be taking control of our ground control team which does everything involving set up and continuous monitoring of ground control. Ryan and Ian are our payload integrator/system integration specialist. They will be in charge of properly fitting payloads to specific drones and having the knowledge to teach others how to do so as well. They is also in charge of making sure drones and payloads are ready for each flight and that drones are stored correctly after every flight. Todd is the lead flight engineer. This means that he will make sure to take thorough notes on how each drone works and functions, including setup, preflight, and monitoring during flight. He will need to know how to teach others how to use specific drones who have no experience with those drones. Krysta is our lead author on the project. She will be in charge of writing the paper, editing the paper, and helping format and edit any other deliverables that are brought together from the group. As a team, if everyone functions properly and as a group, we will be sure to succeed on this project. I personally am excited to be working with such a driven group of peers who are committed and excited about a project like this one.