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Thanks to our students, the drones will no longer be invisible to other pilots

Publication date: 
2019/06/26
The Faculty of Information Technology, (FIT CTU) participates in a unique research that makes drones safer and more usable. For example such as coordinating multiple drones with a rescue helicopter or delivering shipments. The four-member student team, in collaboration with the faculty, has developed a unique Dronetag device that uses modern mobile and satellite technology to make any drone visible in the air traffic control maps. The FIT CTU student team led by Ing. Lukáš Brchl has recently established the start-up company Dronetag, engaged in the development of small independent IoT devices for drones bearing the same name as the company. Their idea came up in November 2018 on Space Application Hackathon, where the team won in the Navigation category. The company's goal is to make drones smarter, interconnected and safe to access air traffic. FIT CTU owns a professional drone on which the device is tested. A key component of the entire system is a web-based platform and mobile application through which users can monitor nearby drone traffic and manage other Dronetag-connected devices.

The drones that are produced today are unable to share their current position in real time with other air traffic participants. So the drones do not see each other, but neither do the aircraft or rescue helicopters. The European Union is preparing a law under which all drones in the air will have to be identifiable. Therefore, the students are producing equipment providing position that can be placed on each drone. For example, air traffic control will receive data to see where each drone is currently moving. As a result, they will be able, for example, to alert a rescue helicopter to avoid a drone that performs other aerial activities.

FIT CTU owns a six-engine drone, which is 1.2 meters in diameter and can carry up to 6 kg of cargo. The drone is most often used with a high-resolution SLR camera to create detailed 3D models. The drone can also be fitted with a Workswell WIRIS thermal camera and used for industrial inspections. The long-term goal is to focus on analyzing data from diverse sensors in real time. At the faculty, drones can now be used in projects in the SAGElab laboratory and in the creation of high-quality 3D models.
 

At the same time, the company, in collaboration with FIT, is developing further extensions that will allow the drone to hang an object that can be delivered quickly and efficiently to the destination. "This can be used, for example, when rescuers need to deliver critical items in an inaccessible rescue operation," explains Lukáš Brchl.

 

More information about the company can be found on www.dronetag.cz.