Kyle Sheehan's Flight Deck

This week the team was faced with cold weather and heavy snowfall which caused us to remain inside and continue conducting lab work. This presented a great opportunity to create the shape files for the different flight areas around the park. To do this, I worked alongside the data manager Evan to work inside of the ArcMap software to draw out areas of interest. These areas were given a unique 5-letter identifier. After completing these segments, I went through and began making notes on each of the segments, beginning with what the 5-letter identifier stands for. I did this so that anyone who goes out into the field knows which areas I am talking about when I tell them where to fly. This week, I plan to add in other notes such as: takeoff/landing zones, aircraft to fly, and points of interest like tall trees or cable lines. These notes will most likely remain fluid throughout the semester as I will work with Evan to adjust how we capture data. Overhead outline of the entire flight...

Our team has wrapped up our first week of classes and are now ready to begin moving forward with this capstone project. During the first week, we began laying the ground work for our flights, data storage, and mission planning. As operations manager, I have begun creating the flight schedule and flight plan files. Today in class, Evan and I worked with the ArcGIS software to create the mission files, these files will be brought into the mission planning software to ensure precise data collection in each of the specified areas. On Wednesday we plan to work with Thomas to complete this files and come up with five letter names for each of them. As I complete the flight schedule I am keeping a couple considerations in mind: I want to have teams of two or three out in the field together and scheduled flights every week as well as people ready to fly in the case of a sudden event (such as flooding). My goal is to have the flights take place at the same time of day so that we can have consi...

During Class time on November 20, my classmates and I engaged in a "Capstone Project Strategy Session". This session was used to discuss our progress in our capstone ideas as well as discuss the potential for combining into one group. Through careful discussion, the eight of us decided to come together to work on a project together. For this project, we will each take on a specified role to create GIS maps, 3D models, and other data sets that could be found useful for the Tippecanoe County Amphitheater Park.  The exact plan for what we are aiming to do is still under discussion. There is a wide range of terrain in this park: a parking lot, an amphitheater, soccer fields, and a riverbed. Hopefully we will be able to accomplish some data collection surrounding how rainfall affects the flooding of the park. We will be provided with a wide range of aircraft and sensors, so our team will develop specific flight missions in the next coming weeks. We have established individual ...

During this lab exercise, we worked with geospatial video to demonstrate how the location of a UAV can be tied to a map as well as the video that the aircraft is seeing at that time. Oftentimes in the UAS industry, we deal with nadir (straight down shots). These shots are then tied to GPS coordinates for mapping purposes. However, there are instances when we need shots obtained from a different angle so as to capture the surrounding areas gathering more information. While reviewing the captured video, either post flight or during flight, it is important to know where the UAV is and where it is looking. This information can be very beneficial for operations such as search and rescue, firefighting, surveillance, etc. Geospatial video allows us to see this data. The idea for the lab was simple: take the data we were given and turn it into the final product. The process however, was not as concrete. In previous labs, our instructor has either given us step-by step instructions or walked ...

During lab on November 8th, we went out to Dr. Hupy's property to practice placing and optimizing ground control points. To begin the day, Dr. Hupy explained the layout of the property so we would have a good idea on where to place the ground control points. From there, we walked around the property marking elevation change, noting possible flight path obstructions, and placing down ground control points around the area to obtain sufficient and equal spacing between them. The GCPs we used were simple, as we could turn them on and place them down as they gathered their specific GPS data. One important thing to note about these GCPs is that they must be picked up in the reverse order which they were placed. So, with each point placed we were sure to note key characteristics of the surrounding environment. This was to help us find the points during post-processing and identify which ones were placed in order. One of the GCPs placed in the back woods, behind this was a creek tha...

For my capstone project, I have chosen to pursue creating an effective way for UAS to be used in accident reconstruction, either aviation or vehicular. I believe that UAS can be a very effective tool for gathering data at a crash site providing high accuracy and quick results. For this project, I conducted some introductory research which is outlined by the annotated bibliography below. The main goals of this research were A) if this had been done before, B) if so, what are some of the different ways of going about it, C) can off-the-shelf aircraft be used effectively? Another part of this was to create a research timeline. This will be important in maintaining proper scheduling of flights and research so that I do not fall behind. Indiana winters are extremely variable so I did not plan out specific dates for flights to be completed, however I provided general date ranges that can still be achieved. Ideally I will be able to run test flights in the early months of the winter, but ...

Over the course of the previous two weeks, my classmates and I have engaged in aerial data collection over a forest located 1.7 miles from Purdue University Airport (KLAF). The flights were conducted in conjunction with local air traffic, and approval was received from KLAF for these flights. We went out to fly multiple days and flew various aircraft. There were instances where either: the flight path was not registered by the aircraft, the data was not captured during the mission, or the aircraft would lose signal mid-flight. This caused us to rotate between different aircraft. Since the flight was over a large wooded area, it was difficult for the flight crew to maintain visual line of sight (VLOS) during the operation. To solve this problem, we broke up into three different teams around the perimeter of the woods and maintained radio contact throughout the course of the operation. This "daisy-chain" allowed us to conduct an autonomous flight mission even though the pilot...