Fly by the Sun: Solar aerial robots (solar drones) for real-time water pollution monitoring and surveillance
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Fly by the Sun: Solar aerial robots (solar drones) for real-time water pollution monitoring and surveillance
Thu, 09/05/2019 - 11:00 to 12:00
Location:
Speaker:
Dr M Hasan Shaheed
Affiliation:
QMUL
Synopsis:
Rotary wing aerial robots or drones are increasingly becoming popular for filming, monitoring and surveillance, with applications to agricultural survey, wildlife monitoring, powerline/pipeline inspection, detection and monitoring of wildfire, safety lookout for surfers out at sea and the like, due to their ability to hover in-place, coupled with their agility and high manoeuvrability. One major limitation of rotary wing drones, however, is their short flight endurance. Flight time of current state-of-the-art battery-powered rotary wing drone still hovers around 30 minutes and limits their practical use in applications requiring longer endurance such as real-time monitoring of water pollution. Solar rotary wing drone is demonstrated to be able to overcome this limitation.
The Solarcopter (Shaheed et al., Aerospace Science and Technology, 2015) was the first ever successful quad-rotor helicopter to fly by solar energy only, without any energy storage system (battery). The primary goal of the Solarcopter was to prove that it is possible to fly a rotary wing aircraft using only solar power, showcasing the potential of solar energy for multi-rotor systems, not just for fixed-wing aircraft. For any real-world applications, systems of this nature will require batteries to be fit for purpose. Solarcopter with a battery management system is therefore developed. The first prototype is a 0.15m × 0.15m × 0.02m solar-powered radio-controlled micro aerial vehicle (MAV) which incorporates a battery management system, automatic power on and off, low power sleep mode and first-person-view (FPV) camera.
The 0.071kg aircraft can fly for an average time of 3.5 minutes, recharge in approximately 68 minutes under 1000W/m2 irradiance and 25°C, and hibernate for just over 33 days without any sunlight. The system can be fitted with different types of sensors such as thermal and chemical sensors to capture objects, organisms and chemical presence in water in real-time.
Biography:
Dr Shaheed is a Senior Lecturer at the School of Engineering and Materials Science, Queen Mary University of London. His research interests include design, modelling and control of robotic/autonomous and hybrid-renewable energy systems. On robotic/autonomous system side, his research focuses on solar aerial robot for monitoring/surveying, master-slave robot for remote handling, robotic retractor for assistive surgery, prosthetic robotic arms, and robotic active capsule endoscope for GI tract screening. On renewable energy side, he has been pursuing research on photovoltaics, wind turbine, and osmotic power (pressure retarded osmosis -PRO) with application to water treatment. Dr Shaheed has published over 70 refereed research articles and has supervised more than 15 PhD students/RAs/PDRAs. He is a CEng and a recipient of the prestigious National Teaching Fellowship. In 2016, he was invited by the Eni Scientific Secretariat to submit an application for the Eni award -2016, the world’s most prestigious award in energy/environment.