Engineering will flight test student-designed payloads at Camp Grafton
A team of UND students is set to test their engineering handiwork in an unmanned aerial system (UAS) at Camp Grafton South next week. The group has scheduled a media day Tuesday, August 10, at the camp, during the three-day test program.
The engineering students are testing the Bruce Tharpe Engineering Super Hauler and imaging, communications, and airborne sense and avoid payloads that they designed and built themselves. The payloads will be tested in a real-world setting aboard several UND UAS aircraft.
“We will be flying in a 2 km x 3 km region of military restricted airspace at Camp Grafton South, a North Dakota National Guard training facility,” said Richard Schultz, professor and chair of Electrical Engineering. “We generally get our flights started at about 9 a.m., provided that the weather is acceptable and the winds are low. Each day ends around 4:30 p.m., unless it rains or winds pick up and force us to shut down earlier.”
The student group plans on flight/ground testing the following technologies throughout the three-day mission:
- Air-drop payload, which drops a bottle of water to Outback Joe in preparation for the Australian Outback Challenge in late September/early October.
- Airborne Sense & Avoid payload, based on the ADS-B transceiver.
- Ground-based electronically-steered antenna array, which tracks an airborne digital video payload installed in the Super Hauler.
- Ground-based mechanical antenna tracker, which automatically tracks the Super Hauler based on GPS location.
- PrecisionAg payload, which records images in the red, green, and near infrared bands for postprocessing as a mosaic of the field to measure vegetation health.
- SUNDOG payload, a three-axis gimbaled EO/IR digital imaging payload.
For more information, contact, Richard R. Schultz, professor and chair, Electrical Engineering, 777-4331/4429, richardschultz@mail.und.edu or William Semke, associate professor, Electric Engineering 777-4571/2571, williamsemke@mail.und.edu.
— Juan Miguel Pedraza, University Relations, 777-6571, juanpedraza@mail.und.edu.
