Drones

Project Mission:

The Drones project aims to deploy low cost drones that can be used to promote social good in communities that are lacking in necessary resources. We seek to design and develop our own drone that can be used to image and map previously unmapped areas. This mapping information can be vital for reasons such as resource distribution and humanitarian aid. We have a future goal of extending our mapping capabilities to agriculture in the developing world.

Milestones:

We have all necessary parts for our drone prototype, which includes the frame/body as well as electrical and navigational components. We 3D printed the drone frame and are currently working on assembling all individual parts into a fully-functioning drone. We have also began the process of community outreach, sWe have all the necessary parts for our drone prototype ready, which includes the frame/body as well as electrical and navigational components. We 3D printed the drone frame and are currently working on assembling all individual parts into a fully-functioning drone. On the software side we have some of the navigational code started as well as some research into the documentation of the flight controller. We are also planning on continuing community outreach to field test our drone.

Future Goals:

The Engineers Without Borders Drones project is targeting under-mapped communities, with a focus on Africa. The project aims to partner with the Carnegie Mellon University – Rwanda campus for further information regarding specific areas to map. In the short term, we expect to have a fully-flying drone with automated navigational features within the next few semesters.This involves having a fully assembled prototype drone complete within this Fall 2021 semester as well some basic navigational code for the software side. In the Spring we plan to focus on field testing as well as the road recognition software side which will be an involved research task. 

We are also currently looking for a co-project lead as well to continue the project in the following years. 

Join Our Project:

• Nikitha Murikinati <nmurikin@andrew.cmu.edu>
• Sachi Desai <sachid@andrew.cmu.edu>