(The skyscanner project is now terminated - a recap of all the achieved work can be assessed with the slides of the final workshop, Jan. 2017)
Fixed-wing mini-drones have already shown to be valuable tools to sample the atmosphere, e.g. to measure temperature, humidity, pressure, winds... But the fine understanding of meteorological phenomena such as the ones that occur within clouds require samples that span both spatial and time scales.
SkyScanner is devoted to the study and experimentation of a fleet of mini-drones that coordinate to adaptively sample cumulus-type clouds, over periods of the order of one hour. The project scope spans atmosphere sciences, aerodynamics at the scale of mini-drones, flight control and energy harvesting, and distributed fleet control. The main tackled challenges are:
- A better understanding of clouds micro-physics
- A better understanding of aerodynamic phenomena at the scale of mini-drones
- Design optimization of enduring mini-drones
- Optimized flight control, energy harvesting
- Adaptive fleet control, dynamically driven by the gathered data
SkyScanner mixes basic researches and experimental developments, from the development of specific instrumentations to the deployement of a handful of autonomous drones within clouds. The Paparazzi flight control framework is the basis upon which we build to fly the drones.
SkyScanner is a fundamental research project supported by the STAE fundation, that spun from the MAV research center. It started in June 2014 and will terminate end of 2016.
