The project proposal consists in the using of an Original Autonomous Indoor Drone Technology System
for Agriculture Tunnel Inspection applications.
Skypersonic, a UAV manufacturer of Indoor UAV based in Michigan, developed an original caged drone
able to perform autonomous tasks in indoor and semi/indoor scenario by using a Automatic Positioning
System (APS) based on Ultra-Wideband technology.
The Agriculture tunnel application can be summarized as follow:
1. Weekly/Daily based a Spherocopter autonomously lift-off from its charging station and perform
a programmed flight over the tunnel field along a designed path for making High Resolution
photos
2. At the end of each tour, the Spherocopter will return to its charging station and will upload
autonomously the acquired photos into a dedicated server.
Project Description:
Below a schematic description of the project.
The Spherocopter will perform all the steps described below in complete autonomy. This will be
possible also in absence of a GPS link.
Charging
Station
Step 1:
Drone charging in its station
Step 2:
At a specific time, the drone starts its
flight path by using APS system
Step 3:
Along the path , the camera shoots
the defined photos
Step 4:
Drone returns to its charging station
Step 5:
Drone uploads photo into the Server
: Anchors (UWB)
: Tag (UWB)
PHOTO
PHOTO
PHOTO
PHOTO
PHOTO
PHOTO
PHOTO
PHOTO
Server
PHOTO PHOTO
PHOTO PHOTO
More about the Skypersonic Company:
Launched in 2015, skypersonic is a drone manufacturer located in Michigan. The company is specialized
in indoor and semi-indoor surveillance and inspection applications for commercial, industrial and
agriculture markets. The company is also a supplier of several STEM Schools and colleges providing
Educational Drone kit. Skypersonic key people are experts in aeronautics, mechatronics, control electronic
design and UAV system.
Skypersonic’s Italian Partner Team (Euroset)
Skypersonic Team
Technical Specifications of the proposed system:
The proposed system is composed by four elements:
1. Skypersonic Automatic Positioning System (APS)
2. Skypersonic Drone - Spherocopter
3. Spherocopter HD Camera System
4. (Autonomous Launch Autonomous Land) ALAL/Charging Station
Skypersonic Automatic Positioning System (APS)
This component represents an ultra-precise positioning system. The autonomous movement of
a drone requires a knowledge of its position at a certain frequency (>10Hz) with a certain
accuracy (<10cm). The Automatic Positioning System (APS) is able to provide to the
Spherocopter those data. The basic technology on this system is the UltraWideband (UWB), a
recent Wireless Transceiver technique. The principle is similar to the GPS, but instead of satellites
the system uses electronic anchors to triangulate and derive the specific position of a tag (that is
included in the drone).
Skypersonic System based on:
Outdoor range: Around 200-300m line of sight depending on your propagation environment. Semi-Outdoor Range: 150-200m line of sight depending on your propagation environment. Indoor range: Around 30-50m depending on your walls. Update rate 10-30 Hz depending on your application. Accelerometer/Gyro/Compass: MPU-9250. Altimeter/Barometer: MS5611-01BA03. Battery: Most small LiPo cells will do. CPU : 8-bit ATMEGA328-MUR MCU/or ST/ARM Crystal: from 8 MHz, 12 MHz, 70Mhz Positioning Sensors: IEEE802.15.4-2011 UWB, Wireless Transceiver/Ultra Wideband techniques Weight without battery: <10g.
Skypersonic Drone – Spherocopter
Skypersonic conceived and developed a UAV that results intrinsically safe: SpherocopterTM, (patent pending) a spherical caged quadcopter able to fly and roll on the ground. Spherocopter is designed having a spherical cage around its main rotary propellers. Its structure is designed to absorb all the energy resulting form an impact, and to protect propellers and internal components. The structure has been designed and developed by imposing the several constrains, (i.e. reducing of vibrations generated by the rotational elements, optimization of the aerodynamics, using of specific materials for keeping: low weight, high robustness and elasticity).
Figure 1- Spherocopter