[Canberrauav] Canberra UAV Visit to Wagga Wagga
Darrell Burkey dazza at tucan.net 
Mon Jul 22 03:12:25 UTC 2013 

Last Wednesday I joined Jack P and Tridge for yet another fun CUAV
adventure. This time we were off to visit Dr Remy Dehann who is doing
research at Charles Sturt Uni in Wagga Wagga.
Seehttp://csusap.csu.edu.au/~rdehaan/

Photos of the trip are on my Flickr account
athttp://www.flickr.com/photos/dburkey/sets/72157634672982405/ published
with permission of Dr Dehann.

Jack had carefully packed all the gear in his car and made room in the back
seat for me. So at 7.30am off we went.
The two hour drive to Wagga was a wonderful chance to catch up and discuss
some technical issues. The weather was varied and it looked questionable as
to if we could fly later on that day.

Our first stop was Remy's house where we introduced ourselves and gathered
in his kitchen for a cuppa and to discuss why he contacted CUAV. He was
interested in gaining a better understanding of autopilots and how to use
them given it's not his area of expertise.

We headed out to his garage to find RC equipment everywhere. This included
the copter being used in his research, quite a few planes and a Cinestar
octocopter complete with DSLR camera. Of course the latter got me very
excited especially since it had the very props I have been looking for world
wide for some time. I was in desperate need of a spare and he let me rummage
through a box where I found the exact one that I needed. Now Remy is my best
friend. His garage had just about anything in it that you wanted related to
RC. We spent a lot of time looking at most everything and hearing the
associated war stories. As we got ready to leave Remy opened  his garage
door to reveal a custom made trailer designed to haul all this gear around.
Jack immediately started taking notes as it was set up quite nicely. And
although he said that he had to weatherproof it, the cost was quite
reasonable.

Next we headed off to Remy's office at CSU where we were introduced to staff
and shown a lot of very interesting equipment including a sophisticated
spectral imaging camera. Remy introduced us to Gary who is the technical
person on the team. He and Tridge spent a lot of time talking about
processing boards, bandwidth, protocols and cameras. This gave me a chance
to ask Remy to explain in simple terms what his research was about and how
spectral analysis works which was just fascinating. His research could make
a huge impact to agriculture by identifying various aspects of plant growth
including early detection of disease and weed control etc.

We all headed back to the car park where Jack and Tridge showed them the
Boomarang and how it was configured for autonomous flight and photography.
It was very interesting to watch this meeting of the minds taking place in a
Uni car park. I guess that's where some of the best research takes place.

Off we headed for a quick lunch at the Greasy Spoon. Yes, that was the name
of the cafeteria although my hamburger was just fine. Lunch gave us more
time for war stories and to get to know each other. Remy is a very friendly
person and it was obvious that we could help each other out.

So now it was time for the great reveal and to see the plane that Remy uses
for his research flights. He went to the US to visit  the owner of BT Models
(http://www.btmodels.com) where he commissioned a plane to be built and then
shipped back to Australia. He told us the same plane has flown in the OBC.
It was quite a large plane with a 120cc engine. Jack took a lot of notes and
we asked a lot of questions. The wings were quite impressive and of course
very large. It looked like it had a massive payload capacity.  At one point
I left to get some air and clear my head which was overflowing with info,
hence the arty farty photos included on Flickr.

After this we headed to a property close by that Remy flys from which is
adjacent to some test fields and farm land. Jack and Tridge set up the
equipment to fly the Boomerang and demonstrate the capabilities of the APM.
A local farmer was there too and he asked Tridge to modify the mission to go
over some land he wanted to see from the air. So, at about 3.30pm the plane
took to the air on a very overcast day with light wind for a short mission.
The turn radius in the plan was a bit too tight for the plane so it overshot
some turns but managed to compensate quite well. The mission flew well and
then the plane headed home. Jack took over and landed the plane in the grass
paddock perfectly. Mission accomplished.

Remy watched all this very carefully and had a lot of discussions with
Tridge and Jack. It was obvious that he was very impressed and thought that
the APM could be a useful autopilot to use in his research. About 5pm we
packed everything up, said our good byes and headed back for home base. It
was quite a day and a wonderful opportunity to meet some very nice people
with similar interests. We invited Remy to visit and I have no doubt we will
be seeing him soon.


Cheers.

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~
Darrell Burkey

Copyright 2013 http://canberrauav.org.au/