During the summers, I worked full time for a company called Pond Life Consulting. I am the lead member of the sales team for Aqua Master fountains and aeration systems. From day to day I pull a boat around to different ponds and lakes while developing unique solutions for customer pond needs and desires. I controlled chemical application and installation of products to keep ponds and lakes looking their best. Due to my boss's need to revamp his website, I was able to utilize my DJI Mavic Pro to acquire aerial videos and pictures of the fountains he wanted to showcase. This included flying over the eight 20 horse power fountains at Cesar's Hoosier Park Racing and Casino & Indiana Grand Racing and Casino attaining videos after we installed them. My boss and I have been discussing for some time how to apply the technology for unmanned aircraft systems to aid my current job of aquatic control for ponds on golf courses and other places. Algae and invasive plants are a major hindrance to almost all ponds. The goal when doing my job is to keep ponds under control without damaging the greens and turf on the course. The problem we have when going to check for algae growth is constant tire tracks from our trailer destroying their perfectly cut grass. Our thought out plan was to use a small unmanned aircraft system to fly over the ponds while using a camera system to identify issues with vegetation growth on top of and even underneath the water. Identifying invasive species of plants with the use of a drone would make our job and the job of the greens keeper a lot easier and more efficient. While exploring this idea with my boss I was in contact with Wildcat Creek golf course in Kokomo, Indiana. While looking through their website I noticed the only way they displayed their golf course to potential golfers was a course tour based on satellite images with lines drawn from the start of the teeing area, through the fairway, and ending at the green. This way of displaying what the golf course looks like does not provide much situational awareness of what the hole looks like or what hazards the golfer has to look out for. To give potential golfers an upper hand when on the course, I decided to gear my AT 319 final project towards capturing aerial videos from the start of the tee box to the green. This way of looking at the course would help a golfer visualize what each hole looks like from start to finish by utilizing a small unmanned aircraft system. This new perspective provides a fantastic window into the game of golf. The use of a drone to flyover and capture footage of a specific golf hole would be able to illustrate the many challenges facing the golfer. Being able to see each hole individually can highlight various shots and hazards. Golf courses are in need of ways to promote how their course differs from the next. The use of aerial videos to display what the different holes have to offer would be revolutionary. I tested this idea out at Coyote Crossing Golf course located in West Lafayette and the final result was terrific!
Recently I have been talking to my good friend who is the lead for a research team with the goal of making extremely efficient offshore wind turbines. The use of unmanned aerial systems to facilitate the inspection is very cost efficient when compared to traditional photography or other manual inspection methods. You can achieve not only visual, but also thermal images on wind turbines for assessment regarding the condition of the rotor blades. Inspection using an unmanned system would take so much less time and comparison, an inspection with rope access takes between a half and a whole day per turbine and involves working at heights which is extremely dangerous. Hopefully once this company gets off the ground I would be able to help them reduce their operation of maintenance costs. In the meantime after I graduate I will be on the hunt for jobs in this field so that I can acquire the experience necessary to help them.
No comments:
Post a Comment