FACTS & FIGURES - The team ' s ground vehicle was shipped to the UAE Feb . 28 - in a crate weighing in at more than 360 Kilos . (~ 800 lbs ) - The team will hand-carry their five aerial vehicles on the 13-hour flight in hardened cases .
team lead in charge of drone design and control portion of the project . “ The whole challenge rides on our ability to perceive the competition area , so our visual algorithm needs to be up to the job .”
To be ready , the team has created different algorithms to account for the brighter light in the UAE , cloud cover , sand , and a variety of other variables they expect they might encounter .
“ Ideally , you want preset configurations , so validating the computer vision algorithm has been one of our most difficult tasks ,” Chaudhry said .
Chang Koo Kang of Seoul , South Korea , a graduate student in aerospace engineering , is the team lead in charge of the first challenge . Kang works on perception sensors which process images from drone-mounted cameras to figure out where targets are located . Because of the monochromatic landscape in the UAE , having sensors that can differentiate topographical details is very important for the flight vehicles .
“ This drone is decked out in terms of sensors ,” Kang said . “ We ’ ve got a high-resolution gimbal-mounted camera that we can point anywhere regardless of the orientation of the aircraft , and a second fish-eye camera that provides a 180-degree field of view . The fish-eye lets us spot points of interest which we then can
MOMENTUMSPRING ' 17 PAGE 15