ARISE

Background:

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), particularly quadcopters, have become increasingly significant in various industries and technical fields including logistics, environmental monitoring, and emergency response due to their vertical takeoff and landing capability, high maneuverability, and ability to hover with precision. These characteristics make quadcopters a strong contender for short-range payload delivery especially where the ability to access remote, constrained, or hazardous locations offers clear advantages over manual or ground-based transportation systems. As industries continue to rely on UAVs for tasks such as medical supply transport, resource delivery, and urgent operations, the development of reliable autonomous payload-delivery platforms has become an important engineering focus.

Goal:

The goal of this project is to develop an autonomous quadcopter system capable of carrying and deploying a 1 pound payload at a distance of around 50 meters with 1-meter precision. Its purpose is to simplify delivery of small objects, such as medication, in areas where conventional transportation faces limitations.

Objectives:

Quarter 1

Week 1-2: Problem Definition, Sponsor Interview, Team Contract and Expectations
Week 3-4: Existing Solution Research, System Decomposition, Development of System Requirements, Function Generation
Week 5: Concept Generation, Subsystem Trade Study, Concept Selection and Analysis
Week 6-7: Preliminary Design Review and Individual Component Analysis
Week 7-9: Complete Preliminary CAD Model, Begin Development of Chassis, Propulsion, and Software
Week 10: Design Review with Sponsor, Demo Component Proof of Concept, Complete Preliminary Design, Finalize Design Report

Quarter 2

Week 1-2: Evaluate issues from the initial proof of concept and develop updated system requirements for autonomous payload delivery
Week 3: Complete electrical wiring and power distribution setup, integrate manual flight control for baseline testing
Week 4-9: Tune and Finalize autonomous navigation and payload delivery code, conduct hover tests and navigation trials
Week 10: Conduct full autonomous quadcopter tests, verify 1 pound payload delivery performance, and document results

Technical Overview:

This project incorporates several innovative and technically challenging features. The quadcopter is fully autonomous, meaning it is utilizing onboard sensors and flight control algorithms to navigate to the target location without manual intervention. A payload release mechanism allows for precise delivery of a 1 pound load, while maintaining flight stability and safety. The key components enabling autonomous operation and reliable payload delivery include a single point LiDAR sensor and an onboard vision sensor, which will provide accurate target identification and ensure safe, low altitude payload release.

Documentation: