Low Altitude Surveillance Blimp

Transcription

1 Low Altitude Surveillance Blimp Capstone Senior Design Proposal EE 499 Jordan Dressman Tyler Doering Matt Ohlmann Corbin Williams Dr. Osamah Rawashdeh

2 Section 1.0 Introduction... 3 Section 1.1 Abstract... 3 Section Background... 3 Section 1.3 Proposal Overview... 3 Section 2.0 Technical Description... 3 Section 2.1 Blimp... 4 Section 2.2 Blimp Payload... 4 Section 2.3 Ground Station... 6 Section 3.0 Timeline... 7 Section 3.1 Blimp Payload System Timeline... 7 Section Ground Station System Timeline... 7 Section 3.3 Papers and Presentations Timeline... 8 Section 4.0 Distribution of Efforts... 8 Section 4.1 Blimp Payload System Efforts... 8 Section 4.2 Ground Station System Efforts... 8 Section 5.0 Budget and Parts List... 8 Section 6.0 Conclusion... 9 Section 7.0 Biographical Sketches... 9 Section 7.1 Jordan Dressman... 9 Section 7.2 Tyler J. Doering Section 7.3 Matt W. Ohlmann Section 7.4 Corbin E. Williams Section 7.5 Dr. Osamah A. Rawashdeh

3 Section 1.0 Introduction Low-altitude blimps have been successfully designed and implemented for several years. These blimps may be used for tasks anywhere from radar detection of missiles to everyday purposes such as various surveillance tactics or environmental conditions. The design and implementation of a low-altitude blimp launched surveillance platform will serve many beneficial purposes for both eager learning college students and the community as well. Section 1.1 Abstract This relatively light-weight, tethered, low-altitude blimp will incorporate a payload that wirelessly communicates with a corresponding ground station. The payload will consist of a pan, tilt, and zoom camera, wireless data radio link, video transmitter, and sensor system. The camera will be controlled from a ground station, and live video feed from the camera will be streamed to the ground. This live video will display the obtained environmental conditions overlaid in text. Section Background Thoughts pertaining to unmanned aerial surveillance vehicles, such as the proposed low-altitude surveillance blimps, have only recently become entirely successful thanks to the complex technologies of today s world. The several components that combine to achieve a low-altitude surveillance blimp make more sense than stationary, elementary surveillance methods of the past. Section 1.3 Proposal Overview Discussed within the following proposal is a technical description to show that students indeed do have an extreme thorough understanding of the task at hand. A timeline is then presented to ensure the project is finished in the allocated timeframe. This timeline will also be used to ensure that work is steadily progressing and that the final deadline will be met. Since the design of a low-altitude surveillance blimp requires a large amount of work there is then a discussion pertaining to each individual team members responsibilities in order to ensure maximum success of the project. Last but certainly not least, budget considerations are explored. In order to ensure the project will fall within budget, a list of possible and/or probable parts to be used in the design is listed. Section 2.0 Technical Description This section of the document provides as technical overview for payload system that will be attached to the blimp, and the ground station. The payloads that have been chosen consist of the following: power system, microcontroller, wireless data link to the ground station, pan zoom tilt video camera, text overlay module, and amateur television 3

4 transmitter. The needed parts to communicate with the air-bone blimp are as follows: laptop running custom ground station software, PC TV tuner card, and wireless data link. Section 2.1 Blimp The blimp model ABS5 is composed of three parts, the blimp, tether line and equipment harness. The ABS5 is constructed out of a 1.5 mm. thick orange polyurethane body with four rigid fiberglass fins. Un-inflated the blimp weighs a total of 1.5lbs, with a max payload weight of 6.0lbs. The blimp dimensions are as follows: Length; 13.1 ft, Diameter; 5.9 ft, Volume; 76 Cu ft. The blimp is secured by a 1000 ft. braided Dacron tether line with a weight of 1.83 lbs. The equipment harness is a square with dimensions of 12 x 8, weighing 18 oz and constructed out of black anodized aluminum. Upgradeable features of the blimp are thickness. The 1.5 mm. thick body can be increased to 3.0 mm. for added durability, but payload maximum will be decreased. Also a light weight tether line can be used, decreasing the weight to 0.71 lbs, but increasing the cost. The equipment harness has a chance for upgraded by a proto-type in its second phase of testing, the size will remain the same, but the weight will be cut in half. Completion of testing from aerial innovations in the next month will determine the use of a new equipment harness. Section 2.2 Blimp Payload Figure 2 Blimp Payload System Block Diagram The power system will include a battery with the capability to power all of the payloads at suggested operation for up to five hours. Suggested operation includes powering the wireless data link to receive packets, positioning the camera, and updating the sensors in the 100Hz range. One must note that constant transmitting of packets over the wireless data link is not included in this five hour usage range. The battery may or 4

5 may not be rechargeable. The power system will also output an analog voltage so therefore the battery voltage can be monitored. The microcontroller system will consist of an Intel 8051 based core microcontroller. The microcontroller will consist of peripherals to interface the rest of the payloads. The peripherals will consist of the following. Read only memory will be used to store the C code to do the following: run the microcontroller, access all the peripherals, decode packets, control the camera, take readings from the sensors, interface with the wireless data link, and interface with the text overlay module. UART, I2C, and SPI hardware will be used to communicate with the sensors on the blimp. The wireless data link will be used to send and receive packets with encoded commands to interface the blimp payloads. The wireless data link will consists of a UHF/VHF, amateur ham radio, transmitter and receiver. Since the blimp will use an amateur ham radio as the wireless data link, a terminal node controller (TNC) will be used to convert the serial digital communication string to the required AX.25 packets that are transmitter over the air. The primary use of the receiver will be used to receive packets to control the camera. The primary use of the transmitter will be to send status packets to the ground station for reporting purposes. There will also be a sensor system on the blimp. The sensors include the following. A global positioning satellite (GPS) receiver will be use to report the current position of the blimp relative to the earth. From the GPS strings the current UTC time can also be obtained. A digital compass will be used to report current heading. A pressure sensor will be used to report the current barometric pressure. In combination with GPS and pressure the altitude of the blimp will be calculated. A humidity sensor will report the current relative humidity. The camera onboard the blimp will preferably have fully functional pan, tilt, and zoom capabilities (PTZ) and have a digital communication interface with the microcontroller. If a camera is purchased without readily available PTZ features, a second option of having two servos with the camera mounted on these servos will be needed to have the capabilities of pan and tilt. BOB-4 is a low-cost video information overlay module that allows a corresponding microcontroller or PC to display text on standard TV monitors. BOB-4 generates background video on-board combined with printable characters and commands controlled through SPI or RS-232 style data links. Both NTSC and PAL video standards are supported by BOB-4. BOB-4 is initially designed in the 30-pin SIMM form factor, 3.50 x 1.05 x 0.35 inches and weighs about 0.35oz/9.8g. Ambient operating temperature range is 0-50C. BOB-4 requires +5VDC regulated to ±5% at 100mA typical. The data path may be transmitted synchronously or asynchronously using eight data bits, no parity, and one stop bit, or simply 8N baud. BOB-4 s video environment is RS-170A (NTSC) or PAL-B composite baseband, 1Vpp(±10%) 75 ohms unbalanced. The video input tolerates up to 2.5VDC bias mixed with incoming video. The video output contains a small DC bias (+1V), which is common to many video sources and is well tolerated at the inputs to most video equipment. ATV transmitter board will accept an NTSC video signal and will generate a corresponding RF signal modulated with all combined components of the payload system. The signal can be received on any standard TV receiver fitted with a suitable RF down-converter capable of tuning to the desired frequency. If the TV receiver is capable 5

6 of tuning these frequencies directly, no converter is needed. CH 60 on some cable ready sets is MHz, and it is possible to modify certain sets to do this, but for best results a dedicated down-converter outputting on an unused VHF channel (CH3 or CH4) is recommended. This allows an optimized RF front end and best reception range. Available in sizes as small as (1.75"x2.75"), ATV transmitters are comparable to many small PC board cameras and are still small enough for R/C applications in which a video link is needed, robotics, or amateur TV. Operation is possible from nominal 9 to 14 volt power supplies, with minor adjustments in video drive. Lead acid or alkaline power packs may be used. Less than 8 or more than 15 volts is not recommended. Power output will be typically from 0.5 to 1.2 watts over this range. The ATV transmitter requires standard NTSC or PAL video. The video input requirement is standard 1V p-p 75 ohms, negative sync. The video amplifier and modulator are DC coupled. Audio inputs from 5 mv to 1 Volt can be accommodated. Section 2.3 Ground Station User Input Camera Controls Figure 2: Ground Station System Block Diagram The ground station shown in Figure 2 consists of an amateur TV receiver and display to show the captured video by the payload with overlaid sensor information, and a laptop and radio transmitter to send commands to the Pan/Tilt/Zoom (PTZ) camera. The amateur TV signal can be received on any standard TV receiver fitted with a suitable RF down-converter capable of tuning to the desired frequency. The ground station will center on a laptop, the amateur TV receiver will be integrated into the laptop with a TV tuner card installed. The user input will be sent to the laptop and processed by way of a graphical user interface (GUI). The GUI will be written in a windows programming language such as Visual Basic or AutoIt. The GUI will consist of pan/tilt/zoom buttons and will preferably have the video displayed within the window. A convenient packet format will be formulated so that when a button is pressed a packet of ASCII characters will be sent to the Serial/RS232 port. 6

7 The user input may include a mouse/keyboard, a joystick, or a virtual reality helmet. All user input will be sent to the laptop and processed by the GUI program so that we can build on each previous version of the software release to accommodate different sources of user input. The virtual reality helmet will consist of goggles to display the video and motion sensors to detect head movements, the motion sensor data will be processed by the laptop and then sent to the serial port for communication so that the camera will mimic the users head movements. Camera control data is transmitted to the payload through a bidirectional radio link. The radio data link will primarily be used to send commands to the PTZ camera. The wireless data link will consists of a UHF/VHF, amateur ham radio, transmitter and receiver. The ground station will use an amateur ham radio as the wireless data link, a terminal node controller (TNC) will be used to convert the serial digital communication string to the required AX.25 packets that are transmitted over the air. The laptop will communicate with the terminal node controller by way of the Serial/RS232 port. Section 3.0 Timeline In order to ensure the project will be finished by the required deadline, a detailed timeline was created. This timeline will be changing everyday to account for different problems that shall be encountered. This timeline will be used to ensure that steady progress is being made toward the final goal and the final goal is met. Since the project consists of two main parts that can be worked on concurrently there are two separate timelines for the ground station and the blimp payload. A third timeline was also created to account for different presentations and different technical paper that need to be presented and written. Half way through the allocated time to finish this project all three schedules will be looked at and any de-scoping or extra features will be decided then. Section 3.1 Blimp Payload System Timeline (Attached at the end of the document) An important note about the blimp payload system timeline is that there will be a series of software releases that will incorporate different features. Each software release will be capable of being used as the final software with just a simplified feature set. This is to account for any schedule slippage. Section Ground Station System Timeline The timeline for completing the Ground Station will begin from February 5 th to April 27 th. This will include a total of 11 weeks to complete the ground station; Table 1 shows the layout of the 11 weeks and what will be expected. The timeline is subject to change as the weeks progress to allow for unforeseen problems or design changes. If the project progresses quicker than expected then development of the virtual reality helmet will begin early. Jordan will be in charge of writing the ground software to interface the user with the laptop and send out serial port data to be broadcast to the PTZ camera. 7

8 Week Expected Outcome for Ground Station 1. Research on windows programming languages (VB, AutoIt) 2. Begin Writing the GUI 3. Decide on a packet format to send to the Serial port 4. Complete the GUI 5. Purchase, Install, and Test the TV tuner card 6. Find ham radio and TNC, integrate with the laptop 7. Begin Research on Virtual Reality Helmet (goggles, sensors) 8. Purchase motion sensors and goggles, interface them to the laptop 9. Modify the GUI to accept the motion sensor input 10. Test all system components, correct any problems 11. Test all system components and ensure they are in working order Table 1: Timeline for completing the Ground Station Section 3.3 Papers and Presentations Timeline (Attached at the end of the document) Section 4.0 Distribution of Efforts Since the project is broken into two main parts, blimp payload system and ground station, the four person team will be broken into 2 groups. Tyler and Corbin will lead the effort for the blimp system payload. Jordan and Matt will lead the effort for the ground station. The entire team will be responsible for all papers and presentations. Section 4.1 Blimp Payload System Efforts Tyler will be the lead software architect and Corbin will be responsible for the black box testing (BBT) and white box testing (WBT) for each of the individual software releases. Having a lead coder and a lead tester will allow for simultaneous coding and testing. It will also be good practice to have a person other than the coder to test the software to ensure the software is bug free. Section 4.2 Ground Station System Efforts Jordan and Matt will be in charge of writing and testing the ground software to interface the user with the laptop and to send out serial port data to be broadcast to the PTZ camera. Jordan and Matt will also research on motion sensors and virtual goggles and determine a way to display the video in the goggles and update the ground software to accept motion sensor data. Section 5.0 Budget and Parts List 8

9 The surveillance blimp project for items we need to buy is operating under a desired budget of $2000. The parts below have a budgeted price for purchasing. This amount is subject to change with the addition of a virtual reality system. Shown below in Table 2 is a parts list with the budgeted for each component or subsystem. Section 6.0 Conclusion Budgeted Item Price Blimp $ Teather Line $ Power Supply System $40.00 Wireless Data Link Blimp $ Wireless Data Link Ground Station* $ Microcontroller $10.00 Camera System $ Pressure Sensor $20.00 GPS $70.00 Digital Compass $50.00 Humidity and Temperature Sensor $30.00 Text Overlay Module $ VHF TV Transmitter $70.00 PC TV Tuner Card $ Laptop* $1, Virtural Reality Helment $ Table 2 Parts List Low-altitude blimps have been successfully designed and implemented for a long time. Upon successful completion of this low-altitude blimp launched surveillance platform, students will reap the rewards of accomplishing not just an extremely important school project, but experience first hand a project that encompasses several extremely important and fundamental electrical engineering problem solving techniques. Section 7.0 Biographical Sketches The necessary knowledge and resources needed to successfully complete an ambitious task such as this will inevitably test nearly every aspect of Electrical Engineering. Solving the problem for a proposed airborne surveillance platform benefits students not only by increasing their teamwork experience, but also by exposing them to the real world technologies produced from everything theoretically taught in school. The following group of four students and one advisor is the team comprised to complete the blimp project. Section 7.1 Jordan Dressman 9

10 Jordan is currently a senior at the University of Kentucky of Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering with accompanying Mathematics and Computer Science minors. Jordan is a member of Eta Kappa Nu (HKN): Electrical and Computer Engineering Honor Society. Jordan is working in the IDEA lab; an embedded systems lab supervised by Dr. Lumpp and Dr. Rawashdeh, currently debugging machines used for Medical Research. Jordan worked two years at Toyota Motor Manufacturer of Kentucky in Georgetown, Kentucky doing electrical maintenance on production lines. Present interests include nanotechnology, quantum computing, and embedded systems. Section 7.2 Tyler J. Doering Tyler is a senior at the University of Kentucky and is currently working towards a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering with a minor in Computer Science. Tyler has completed four different co-op rotations at General Electric Consumer and Industrial in Louisville Kentucky. During the four different rotations Tyler gained experience in embedded system hardware and software design. Tyler currently works in the IDEA Lab at the University of Kentucky where he does embedded systems hardware and software research for different projects and currently a member of the KySat Flight Software Team. Section 7.3 Matt W. Ohlmann Matt is currently a senior at the University of Kentucky pursuing a Bachelor s of Science degree in Electrical Engineering accompanied with a minor in Mathematics. Matt has had Co-op educational experience with BWXT-Y12 Nuclear Weapons Complex located in Oak Ridge, TN. Various tasks involved providing insight for the updating of various evacuation alarm systems such as ENS (Emergency Notification System) and CAAS (Criticality Accident Alarm System) under Non-Nuclear Design and Process Engineering supervision. Section 7.4 Corbin E. Williams Corbin is a senior at the University of Kentucky and is currently working towards a BS in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics. Corbin worked in the U.S.A.F. as a Meteorological and Navigational Aids Technician performing maintenance on over 40 pieces of meteorological equipment and 15 pieces of Navigational equipment. Corbin was also the sole maintainer of 1 of the existing 13 Digital Ionosphere sounding system used in specifying the global ionosphere in real time. Section 7.5 Dr. Osamah A. Rawashdeh Dr. Rawashdeh is a Lecturer in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Kentucky. He received his BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Kentucky in 2000, 2003, 2005 respectively. 10

11 He absolved internships at Daimler Benz AG and at SIEMENS AG and has been a member of the IDEA Lab since March He is a member of IEEE, ACM, AIAA, and ARRL. His research interests include embedded systems design, reconfigurable computing, and fault-tolerance. 11

12 Blimp Payload Date Item Feb 4-10 Feb Feb Feb 25-3 Mar 4-10 Mar Mar Mar Apr 1-7 Apr 8-14 Apr Apr Payload Sensors Selected 2 Packet Framing v1.0 Release 3 Camera Interface 4 Camera Selection 5 Recevie Prototype Hardware 6 Prototype Hardware Mockup with Dev Board 7 Hardware Layout 8 Software Release 1 9 BBT Software Release 1 10 Software Release 2 11 BBT Software Release 2 12 Software Release 3 13 BBT Software Release 3 14 Software Release 4 15 BBT Software Release 4 16 Software Release 5 17 BBT Software Release 5 18 Software Release 6 19 BBT Software Release 6 20 Software Release 7 21 BBT Software Release 7 22 Flight Testing 23 ECE Day Presentation and Papers Date Item Feb 4-10 Feb Feb Feb 25-3 Mar 4-10 Mar Mar Mar Apr 1-7 Apr 8-14 Apr Apr Design Review Presentaion 2 Capstone Design Report Contents of Each Revision Hardware Revision Testing 1 Packet Rx, Depacketize, Packet Tx Software 2 PTZ Camera Control Misc 3 Reading of I2C Based Sensors Spring Break 4 Reading of SPI Based Sensors 5 Reading of GPS and Altitude Calculation 6 Text Overlay Basic Functions 7 Text Overlay Advanced Functions and Graphics 12