Electricity infrastructure

Industry Event for the Drones with Tools project 14…

Last week on 14 June, an Industry event was held for Professor Richard Green’s $10mil drones with tools project which is funded by MBIE. The project has a key research team from CSSE and Mechanical Engineering, University of Canterbury, let by Prof. Dan Zhou, as well as a team led by Assoc. Prof Karl Stol from the University of Auckland. Industry partners were invited to see progress on this interesting project which started last October.

The event was located at the UC Club where research presentations were given by the key researchers as well as lab tours of the Mechanical Engineering wind tunnels and the Drone lab located in Computer Science and Software Engineering department. We were lucky to have warm sunny winter weather and there were many interesting discussions had about the research.

This project will span five years and aims to enable drones to use tools with high precision in mid-air in difficult changeable settings. The goal is to create technology that can be used in forestry, testing power lines or in the construction industry

Richard Green, Dan Zhao, Sam Schofield and Karl Stol (UoA) speaking about their research at Ilam Homestead

Wind tunnel demonstration in Mechanical Engineering

Drone project wins MBIE bid

UC Vision Researcher and Professor in Computer Science Richard Green as well as Professor Dan Zhao in Mechanical Engineering are collaborating on a project using drones which will change the way drones are used in different industries, over and above current uses such as surveying.

The research is focusing on UAVs using precision tools in changing dynamic environments, such as outdoors with hazards such as wind. The project is investigating drones which can be used around hazardous structures such as power pylons or in the construction and forestry industries.

The biggest challenge will be coordinating different research fields into one project. They will be looking at turbulent flow rotor-to-rotor interactions prediction, precise control of a hovering UAV, force trajectory control, and robust estimate of a UAV’s position and orientation in a wide range of dynamic environments

Others involved in the project include Senior Research Engineer and UAV expert Kelvin Barnsdale as well as a team of NZ experts in UAV, data and aerodynamics research. They will also be collaborating with international researchers and UAV manufacturers and users.

The research will benefit different industries where there are jobs that are inaccessible and hazardous for humans. This includes arboriculture, silviculture, electricity infrastructure industry, civil construction etc. The research team are also working with Maori stakeholders and government and regulation bodies.

The benefits will be making hazardous tasks safer, easier and more cost-effective and efficient.

They recently won a $10 million grant from MBIE to undertake this research over five years.

For more information on this research visit the University of Canterbury website or the page on UC Computer Vision Website