How About an Intelligent Unmanned Aerial System?
Today I will describe an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) that can be used by hobbyist and professionals, and it is manufactured not by DJI, but by Yuneec. What features are important and how does one go about deciding which features are most relevant? Are quadcopters better than fixed wing aircraft? Do you want more than four rotors? There are so many wonderful and exciting options for unmanned systems today and there will be even more available tomorrow.
Many drones come standard with a few basics today. You can expect to your UAS to have a return to home feature, target tracking is becoming more common, and obstacle avoidance capabilities are certainly a more popular option with today's UAS. How do you feel about a UAS that can remember and learn from past experiences? Yuneec manufactures the Typhoon H Plus and it claims to do just that!
The Typhoon H Plus uses sonar for collision avoidance and can remember the obstacles it avoids for future reference (Yuneec, n.d.). It can travel up to 30 mph and has a flight time of 28 minutes (Yuneec, n.d.). You can assign points of interest for the Typhoon H Plus to track and it will automatically orbit above that target until other instructions are issued. This is the perfect UAS for sports enthusiast what want to get high energy footage of people skiing or mountain biking.
Safety is important so I was curious what happens when the signal is lost to this unit or if a rotor fails. I was also curious how a UAS with autonomous capability was able to be stay contained in a specific area. According to Yuneec's website the Typhoon H Plus has answers to all of this. There are two different channels the pilot has access to control the Typhoon so if one is lost you have a backup channel ready to go. A unique feature with this UAS is what happens if a rotor fails. The UAS will automatically switch from six to five motors in the advent of a rotor failure. My last curiosity was answered with the ability this UAS has for the pilot to define boundaries via a geo fence using GPS technology. Most UAS have built in geo fencing to keep them from operating in restricted areas such as airports or over stadiums filled with people (Waddell, 2017). The Typhoon has the added ability for the pilot to create additional constraints or boundaries keeping the UAS fenced in a certain area thus decreasing the chance of a fly away situation (Yuneec, n.d.).
figure 2 photo credit: Yuneec Holding Ltd.
Waddell, K. (2017, March 2). The Invisible Fence That Keeps Drones Away From the President. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/drones-invisible-fence-president/518361/
Yuneec Holding Ltd. Company. (n.d.). Typhoon H Plus – Yuneec. Us.Yuneec.Com. Retrieved May 15, 2021, from https://us.yuneec.com/typhoon-h-plus/
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