Design and assembly of a flight test space for small UAVs

One of the present research focuses within the MechatronicSystems.Group is unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). To this end, a flight test space is required to facilitate testing UAVs within a safe, constrained space.

The design is likely to include netting to prevent the UAV from exiting the designated flight space. Additionally, the flight space must incorporate the mounting of external sensors, such as cameras, and have consideration for wiring to a designated base station PC. The flight space will also require patterned flooring that can be used for calibration and vision-based testing.

This project is likely to include:

• Researching current solutions
• Development of a CAD render representing the admissable flight volume and setup
• Sourcing and installation of netting and other mounting elements
• Considerationg for adding external sensor and routing cables
• Preliminary testing of the system

The ideal candidate(s) will have strong CAD and design ability, and ideally also have some exposure to 3D printing.

Supervisor: Arnold Pretorius