OpenRelief creates a drone to be used in disaster relief
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Looking Ahead
OpenRelief is still in the testing stage. A complete system was scheduled to be production-ready by December 2012. This first release will be a basic drone with an ability to receive transmissions from the ground-based radiation sensor. Once the first model is complete, OpenRelief plans to add gradually to its capcity. Coughlan talks of a basic sensor for the air – most likely to monitor weather conditions – and a communication system for the ground, based on a software-defined radio [12] that will allow information to be shared more easily than conventional hardware systems would permit.
Coughlan says,
First and foremost, we want to provide better information capabilities to frontline disaster responders around the world as soon as possible. However, we are working towards a larger vision of open design, interconnected and extremely modular sensors and platforms that can be combined like Legos to solve a multitude of problems. The idea is that in a few years anyone can get the OpenRelief designs or purchase the components from commercial suppliers and rapidly deploy solutions to address their particular disaster challenge.
"It's a big idea," Coughlan concludes, "but we already have most of the open technology in the existing global market. Now, we need to glue it together, test it, and ensure broad operability."
Infos
- OpenRelief project: http://www.openrelief.org/
- ArduPilot: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ardupilot-main-page
- Raspberry Pi: http://www.raspberrypi.org/
- OpenCV: http://opencv.org/
- CanberraUAV: http://www.canberrauav.com/
- Nanode: http://www.nanode.eu/
- Toradex AG: http://www.toradex.com/
- Sahana Software Foundation: http://sahanafoundation.org/
- Cosm: https://cosm.com/
- Aleph Objects: http://www.alephobjects.com/
- Open source airframe: http://openrelief.org/pipermail/developer_openrelief.org/2012-July/000504.html
- Software-defined radio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_defined_radio
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