Development of Rotary Wing Mini UAS for Civilian Applications

Abstract

This research paper is about team Dhaksha's accomplishment in designing, developing and testing a slew of Rotary Wing Mini Unmanned Aerial Systems for entry into various international aerial robotics/unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) competitions and civilian applications. Dhaksha, the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), developed by the team at Madras Institute of Technology (MIT) campus of Anna University, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, with its stable design presented stiff competition to other contestants during the May 2012 technology demonstration called UAVForge organized by Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), Department of Defense, USA. Team Dhaksha on behalf of national defense research agency deployed their system as a test bed for Acoustic field testing and analysis. The team also deployed their UAS, for state police, in a religious festival, over a crowd of 20 lakh pilgrims during November 2012, to avail instant aerial images. UAS Dhaksha was deployed for investigation of structural strength of the India's tallest structure, a 300 m high Reinforced Cement Concrete (RCC) tower. Recently during the flash floods in the Himalayan river Mandakini at an altitude of 4200 m above mean sea level, Dhaksha assisted the forces in the relief and rescue operations by providing instant thermal/video images of the scene of disaster.