Automated deployable protection unit for drones

Abstract

This drone protection unit is designed to protect from possible accidents on the ground or water. Accidents may cause technical failure, signal losses, motor malfunction, weather condition, collision etc. The objective is to develop a prototype to protect the components or any such packaging attached to the drone for safe landing. Similar to an airbag concept, it deploys two inflators once the sensor detects any unwanted movement experienced by the drone. A total of six tests were done for this experiment. The first three tests were the Ultrasonic, Arduino and reliability tests; to indicate any environmental variables that can have an impact to the drone and for the speed sensor. Among these three, ultrasonic test gave the best sensing ability compared to the others. The reliability test was conducted by placing the sensor in front of a fan to observe the effect on the sensor; whether it would be affected by windy conditions. The functional test involved the drone to be equipped with six sensors to determine the result for any changes in movement of any object from the sensor. The final test was observing the whole system by dropping the decoy drone from a height of 12m. Overall results showed that the time taken for the airbag to fully be inflated was 32ms while the drone protection applied for this project was 1.293s.