Goals:
Design and build a fully autonomous electric Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to survey and monitor a 4,000-acre macadamia nut farm on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Key elements:
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), finite-element analysis
Research issues:
The goal of this project is to design and build a fully autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle to survey and monitor a 4,000 acre macadamia nut farm on the Big Island of Hawaii. The UAV will record footage with a High Definition ‘GoPro’ Camera allowing the operator to determine current status of crops. The live aerial feed will allow the farmer to reduce labor costs, resulting in high efficiency farming.
The aircraft is capable of fully autonomous flight, following a GPS guided adjustable flight pattern, as well as manual RC control for emergency situations. The plane is also equipped with a real-time First Person View system and high definition surveillance camera under the fuselage providing ground crew with an HD bird’s-eye view of the area below.
Meeting time:
TBD
Advisor(s):
Mehrdad Ghasemi-Nejhad
Partners and sponsors:
MacFarms
Majors, preparation, interests:
ME
Contact information:
Mehrdad Ghasemi-Nejhad, nejhad@hawaii.edu