[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. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~ Darrell Burkey
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