(Week 1)The Final Semester Begins Now!

Fig 3

Week one update.

Its a new year and a new semester here at Purdue University in Snowy West Lafayette. The UAS Class of 2019 is not letting a little frozen precipitation get in the way of making giant leaps in the Tippecanoe County Amphitheater (TCA) class capstone project. The class utilizing the time of below zero temperatures to make the necessary preparations for future flight operations. Roles and responsibilities were further defined from the fall semester as well as additional task were identified and assigned. Time to knock of the ice of the winter break and head towards a warm future of the spring 2019 semester.

The first week the class addressed topics and planning that are the the building blocks for any large operation. At the top of the list, the bear that is data management. The class discussed all things data, from naming convention to file structure, to read/write permissions. Many sub-topics of data were agreed upon and work is being done to publish formatting guides for the class to follow that will ensure proper data collection and archiving that will ultimately support an efficient flow of future data processing and product development. The class working on data management can bee seen in figure one below.

Fig 1

After the data bear had been slain, the class separated into teams to address other fundamental mission pre-planning topics. My team worked on a notification e-mail that will be sent out to the TCA and other relevant parties. This e-mail will serve a a notification of intent to conduct flight operations on the desired site. The rough draft of this form is shown in fig 2 bellow.

Fig 2

Other task that were either assigned or conducted during the first week of the semester included; class logo creation, identification of training aides, issues with new Altum payload integration on the Brammer UAV, platform updates, ground control point (GCP) processes, and course of action for data collection at TCA.

The first week of the semester has come to a close and while some aspects proved to be a little slippery trying to get started. Now that the traction cleats have been strapped on, each stride is accelerating the project towards future UAS operations and eventually a product that will support the 2019 UAS capstone course final goal.