On a windy and rainy morning my parents and I walked past Centennial Park on our way to the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta. By the time we arrived at the AUVSI Conference & Expo, we were soaking wet from the knees down. We walked into the Expo Hall filled with different drones and many technologies to learn about.
First we stopped at the Pix4D booth. There they had a 3D printed dinosaur fossils on display. One of the guys showed me how the app works and what it can create. So, he took his tablet and opened the the Pix4D app camera and we started walking around to scan the dinosaur fossils. Once we were done scanning we opened the map to see what it scanned. In the App, I could see the dinosaur fossils from many different perspectives. I was able to use my fingers to move the image around so I can see all the different perspectives.
This new technology can help archeologist by using a drone to capture 3D perspective of the fossils that might be hard to reach on foot but they can also help humans not be invasive to natural habitats. For example, KwF can use Pix4D to create a map of the snow leopard territory that shows the elevation, depth, and distance of mountain the Himalayan range. This will give people a new perspective and different view of the Himalayan mountains.
There is another way to create topography maps that are more accurate. In the 1970s, a
Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) remote sensing system used light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure the ranges of the earth to create the first elevation map. When I visited the Phoenix Lidar System booth they showed how to mount their lidar on a drone to then scan the earth with a laser beam that measures the distance from the altitude of the drone to the tree tops and canopy below. Sometimes, you can tell there are ferns or shrubs below the tree lines. This is a much more accurate way of understanding the different elevations of heavy canopy such as forests and mangroves.
When we left home for the conference there was a big storm that knocked out power lines. If the local power company had a drone with a lidar system on it they could have easily found all the locations that had trees down and power lines broken, but instead it took them 24 hours to make all the repairs. Technology can be very helpful in many disaster situations.
The Lidar System Uses:
Laser (Uses green light and near-infrared light)
GPS (Global Positioning System)
IMU (Inertial Measuring Unit - it’s the balancing system for flight)
Computer (Processes all the data into information)
There are lots of types of drones and each one has different uses. You are probably familiar with the quadcopter which has 4 propellers, but doesn't fly for too long. Then there are fixed wing drones that require a long runway or a catapult. And there are drones that can take off vertically and fly long distances like a fixed wing! Let me introduce you to Penguin B VTOL (Vertical Taking Off & Landing) made in Latvia. Latvia is located in north eastern Europe and it became an independent country after WWI in 1918. Penguin can fly for up to 8 hours and carry about 7 pounds of payload. It can even be customized with different types of surveillance sensors.
I had an opportunity to speak with one of UAV Factory's specialist. He helped explain the different surveillance sensors on an Octopus Gimbal. There is a thermal camera, a visible band camera and a laser pointer. You can watch the video here:
There were many other booths I visited, but I can't write about all of them. So, I thought I would discuss the different components and sensors used in drones or engineering. You all know that I love animals especially cats. So there was a booth with small little Tigers on display. I had to stop and meet the SamTec team! They are a different breed of cat, founded in 1976 by Sam Shine.
Samtec provides the internal components and connectors that can be used for electrical connections in drones, robots, and many other machines. One thing that makes Samtec different is giving customers free samples so they can test out the products and if they like them they they will want to come back to purchase. I think it's a good business model because it builds trust with the customers and shows Samtec has great products. But most importantly I love that Samtec's mascot is a tiger. One year they didn't put a Tiger on the catalogue and ended getting lots of questions from their customers about where the tiger went? Chuck Grantz and his Team mate were nice enough to give me two tigers who I named Pixie & Pat. Learn more about Samtec in this video:
If I was stuck being lectured in a seat about all these topics I would have probably been bored and not pay attention. However, because I was able to physically walk around and see, feel, and ask questions about the technologies it kept me interested. It also helped keep my attention span because once I was done learning about a topic or product I could move on to something different.
As we wrapped up our day in the Expo Hall, I learned how the many booths that I visited
were interconnected. You have to understand how one component connects within the whole system and how it functions independently from the whole system. "Octopuses have hundreds of suckers, each one equipped with its own ganglion with thousands of neurons. These 'mini-brains' are interconnected, making for a widely distributed nervous system. That is why a severed octopus arm may crawl on its own and even pick up food." - Franciscus Bernardus Maria de Waal, Dutch Primatologist and Ethologist
A special thanks to Rob Thompson & Kelly Carnes for this special educational opportunity!
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