Avis
People's Choice Finalist
Avis made it to the People's Choice Finals (Top 5)
Create an app that will enable small drone operators to know more about specific weather parameters, local terrain and no fly zones within a five-mile radius of their GPS location.
Avis is a solution that involves a smart wristband and an Android app to help drone operators control the drone, notify them about weather and near no-fly zones. A working prototype has been made with Parrot AR.Drone and a Bluetooth LE wristband.
Weather info and No-fly zones on the wristband
Our smart wristband has a vibration feedback module and LED weather indicators. When the wristband pairs with the app, the current location is retrieved from the phone GPS sensor. The no-fly zone database is queried with the current location, and if there are such zones in 5 mile radius, the vibration motor is activated. Visibility and wind speed is shown by the LED light indicators that are facing the user while wearing the wristband.
Controlling the drone using the wristband
By tilting the wristband, the drone can move up-down and left-right. There is a minimum tilt threshold in order to prevent shaky control and over-correction. In addition there's a button for taking off and calibrating.
How it works
Our working prototype uses a commercial Parrot AR.DRone controlled by a 802.11g Wi-Fi connection.
The wristband we are working on has the following electronics:
- ±1g accelerometer with 30Hz sensor updates
- Bluetooth Low Energy module
- Off-balanced motor for vibrations (no-fly zone warning)
- LED weather indicator
It receives weather info & no fly notification by deserializing the GATT Characteristics using the Bluetooth LE module, which are sent by the app. When the accelerometer has a new sensor update, a GATT characteristic is sent which contains floating point accel. data. The app calculates movement command from the accel. data and sends it to the drone using AT-based protocol over UDP. The app has several components:
- Bluetooth LE connection with wristband
- UDP connection with drone
- Yahoo Weather Open API for weather parameters
- SQLite no-fly zones
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Team presentation : https://goo.gl/6sPwLA
