UAARG team leader Rijesh Augustine and team member Brian Hinrichsen show off their team's aircraft.
Edmonton-A group of students heading to a national student competition in Quebec this week will put their engineering education to work using aerial robotics to gather information about a simulated train derailment.
Four members of the U of A Aerial Robotics Group will launch their remote control aircraft to assess the conditions around a remote railway crash. They'll be asked to report back on the conditions at and around the crash site, using their aircraft to collect information and images.
"This competition is more industry driven than others," said team leader Rijesh Augustine, a third-year engineering physics student. "This year they're planning a simulated train derailment and they want teams to go out and assess the situation and determine the scope of the problem. It's a good real-world challenge."
The U of A team will compete against students from universities across Canada at the Unmanned Systems Canada competition in Alma, Quebec, May 1 - 3.
The students have modified an off-the-shelf radio controlled aircraft that has a wing space of 1.8 metres, weighs about 3 kg and has a camera, air speed sensor, altimeter, GPS, magnometer, gyroscope and air speed sensor.
Teams will launch and land their propeller-powered aircraft manually but once the planes are beyond visual range, they hand over control to another team member who operates an autopilot system, directing the plane to follow a series of pre-programmed flight patterns and to complete a number of tasks before returning to the runway.
In all, four team members will attend the competition. Keep track of the team at the UAARG website.