Masters Thesis Defense “Implementation of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Reporting Plume Cloud Concentration Values in a 3D Simulation Environment” By Emily Novak

Committee:  Drs. Thomas Wischgoll, Advisor, John Gallagher, and Yong Pei

ABSTRACT:

Unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, have become an important tool in a variety of fields of research when studying cloud plumes. Plume clouds can derive from blast mining, chemical warfare, natural causes, and other factors, and can be comprised of various toxic chemicals. This study implements a procedure that simulates a 3D environment in which UAVs are individually controlled and each report a plume’s concentration value at a specific location. The study is completed using the PX4 autopilot system, Gazebo simulation environment, Robot Operating System (ROS), and QGroundControl. Once these tools are installed and integrated together, model plugins on each vehicle calculate the concentration value of a plume inserted into the environment. The results examine the system’s frame rate and CPU load average for controlling multiple vehicles, and they show that the simulation can efficiently run multiple vehicles simultaneously, with each vehicle computing an accurate concentration reading.