Just back this week from the oil spill exercise in Fenit in Co. Kerry. This was related to last years 'Exercise Cathach' and the weather conditions were quite similar! High winds, heavy showers - ideal weather for UAVS....I also finally found someone to explain why it had been called Cathach (which means sea monster) but I have now forgotten the reason. Oh well...
Still, like Cathach the Falcon was able to fly (thanks to Ronán Ó Braonáin - our resident Falcon top-gun) and some video footage was captured along the shoreline in the area we were tasked to monitor. We also rolled in some Braemor training so it was a busy few days.
This year we were testing two apps in development for controlling and directing ground teams.
This year we were testing two apps in development for controlling and directing ground teams.
- The first is new. The central control team were based in a hotel in Tralee and were watching our movements real-time on a map of the area. They could send us tasks and direct us to areas for samples, photos, etc. We could relay those back to them in near-real time - depending on phone signal. A few bugs to be worked out but it worked very well overall. Rain, cold fingers and smart phone screens do not go well together, however.
- The second app is the older ubipix App - I've been using this for a few projects for quite some time, it allows us to take spatial video and upload that. The first app could task us to the location and tell us what video was needed, the second app allowed us to take it and upload it - the guys in the hotel monitored and controlled the overall area. Here is an example of a Ubipix video from the day.
The highlights of the trip were undoubtedly the lovely Kerry scenery, the stray dog that got in the way of every demonstration on the beach and that no-one could catch and the elderly couple who stopped us to see if we could spot dog dirt with our UAV and then asked for lengthy IT advice when they found out one of us was a computer scientist. Needless to say I abandoned said CS to his fate and enjoyed some more of the Kerry scenery from a few metres away.
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