UH Drone Technologies

The mission of this project is to have an unmanned aerial vehicle fly autonomously while searching for targets. It then releases an unmanned ground vehicle to a target in order to deliver a payload. This team consisted of students from various majors such as electrical, civil, and mechanical engineering. It was also a vertically integrated project which means there was a faculty member, graduate students researchers, and undergraduates of all levels. The goal is to compete in an annual competition in Maryland during the summer. The competition focuses on a search-and-rescue mission where teams are scored based on aspects such as navigating waypoints autonomously, taking in-flight pictures, and detecting targets.

I first learned about this project when faculty spoke at my freshman dorm. I became interested and was able to join for my freshman project. Since I am a Computer Engineering major, I joined the Image Processing subsystem which focused on target recognition.

As a member of the Image Processing subsystem, my main tasks included creating training images for the object detection algorithm. During my second year, I was also part of pilot and mission operations training. In pilot training we learned how to properly man a fixed-wing drone in the case that during autonomous flight we need to take over. Through mission operations training, I learned how all of the subsystems worked together to create a complete team and how each section is important in their own way. We also learned how to manage team flight practices.