The project proposal consists in the using of an Original Autonomous Indoor Drone Technology System

for Agriculture Tunnel Inspection applications.

Skypersonic, a UAV manufacturer of Indoor UAV based in Michigan, developed an original caged drone

able to perform autonomous tasks in indoor and semi/indoor scenario by using a Automatic Positioning

System (APS) based on Ultra-Wideband technology.

The Agriculture tunnel application can be summarized as follow:

1. Weekly/Daily based a Spherocopter autonomously lift-off from its charging station and perform

a programmed flight over the tunnel field along a designed path for making High Resolution

photos

2. At the end of each tour, the Spherocopter will return to its charging station and will upload

autonomously the acquired photos into a dedicated server.

Project Description:

Below a schematic description of the project.

The Spherocopter will perform all the steps described below in complete autonomy. This will be

possible also in absence of a GPS link.

Charging

Station

Step 1:

Drone charging in its station

Step 2:

At a specific time, the drone starts its

flight path by using APS system

Step 3:

Along the path , the camera shoots

the defined photos

Step 4:

Drone returns to its charging station

Step 5:

Drone uploads photo into the Server

: Anchors (UWB)

: Tag (UWB)

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO

PHOTO

Server

PHOTO PHOTO

PHOTO PHOTO

More about the Skypersonic Company:

Launched in 2015, skypersonic is a drone manufacturer located in Michigan. The company is specialized

in indoor and semi-indoor surveillance and inspection applications for commercial, industrial and

agriculture markets. The company is also a supplier of several STEM Schools and colleges providing

Educational Drone kit. Skypersonic key people are experts in aeronautics, mechatronics, control electronic

design and UAV system.

Skypersonic’s Italian Partner Team (Euroset)

Skypersonic Team

Technical Specifications of the proposed system:

The proposed system is composed by four elements:

1. Skypersonic Automatic Positioning System (APS)

2. Skypersonic Drone - Spherocopter

3. Spherocopter HD Camera System

4. (Autonomous Launch Autonomous Land) ALAL/Charging Station

Skypersonic Automatic Positioning System (APS)

This component represents an ultra-precise positioning system. The autonomous movement of

a drone requires a knowledge of its position at a certain frequency (>10Hz) with a certain

accuracy (<10cm). The Automatic Positioning System (APS) is able to provide to the

Spherocopter those data. The basic technology on this system is the UltraWideband (UWB), a

recent Wireless Transceiver technique. The principle is similar to the GPS, but instead of satellites

the system uses electronic anchors to triangulate and derive the specific position of a tag (that is

included in the drone).

Skypersonic System based on:

Outdoor range: Around 200-300m line of sight depending on your propagation environment. Semi-Outdoor Range: 150-200m line of sight depending on your propagation environment. Indoor range: Around 30-50m depending on your walls. Update rate 10-30 Hz depending on your application. Accelerometer/Gyro/Compass: MPU-9250. Altimeter/Barometer: MS5611-01BA03. Battery: Most small LiPo cells will do. CPU : 8-bit ATMEGA328-MUR MCU/or ST/ARM Crystal: from 8 MHz, 12 MHz, 70Mhz Positioning Sensors: IEEE802.15.4-2011 UWB, Wireless Transceiver/Ultra Wideband techniques Weight without battery: <10g.

Skypersonic Drone – Spherocopter

Skypersonic conceived and developed a UAV that results intrinsically safe: SpherocopterTM, (patent pending) a spherical caged quadcopter able to fly and roll on the ground. Spherocopter is designed having a spherical cage around its main rotary propellers. Its structure is designed to absorb all the energy resulting form an impact, and to protect propellers and internal components. The structure has been designed and developed by imposing the several constrains, (i.e. reducing of vibrations generated by the rotational elements, optimization of the aerodynamics, using of specific materials for keeping: low weight, high robustness and elasticity).

Figure 1- Spherocopter