Facilities and Research Capabilities
- Small Multirotor UAS
- Three 3DR Iris+ and one 3DR Solo
- One DJI Mavic 2 Pro
- One Parrot ARDrone 2.0 and one Parrot Bepop UAS
- Fixed wing UAS
- Flex Innovations 170 (1-2 kg payload)
- Modified Piper Pawnee 1/3 Scale (8 kg payload)
- Smaller (500 g payload) fixed-wing testbeds
- Sensors and Payloads
- Samsung 360 camera
- GoPro and Garmin Virb cameras
- Two Garmin LiDAR-Lite V3
- Hypersen Solid-State Scanning LiDAR
- Lightware SF11 LiDAR
- Fluxgate magnetometer
- Numerous Pixhawk, Ardupliot, Pixhawk light and MicroPilot autopilot and telemetry systems
- Training and Pilot Certificates
- Members of our group hold Basic or Advanced RPAS Pilot Certificates from Transport Canada as well as Restricted Operator Certificates – Aeronautical to operate aviation voice radios. We have also obtained Special Flight Operations Certificates (SFOCs) for more complex operations as needed.
Current UAS Research Projects (updated November 2019)
- Small electric UAS for Airborne Geophysics (with Prof. Samson and Sander Geophysics Ltd)
- On this project we have several graduate students developing cooperative control strategies for multiple small UAS; terrain following and avoidance and magnetic interference compensation methods. Students had the opportunity to work in the lab and also in the field conducting several flight test campaigns.
- This program will conclude in September 2019
- Biologically-inspired micro aerial vehicles (with Profs. Dawson and Khouli)
- Automated migratory bird detection and counting (with Profs Dawson, Steele, Schramm and Dr. Buins)
- Cross border infrastructure monitoring (with Clarkson University)
- NSERC CREATE Uninhabited aircraft systems Training, Innovation and Leadership Initiative with partners at ETS, Sherbrooke, University of Ottawa, Queen’s University, Clarkson and the University of Alaska Fairbanks.