Tag: environmental research

Livecoding UAVs for environmental research

Some screenshots of the UAV livecoding visual programming language. Weather being on our side, we’re planning some test flights later this week! The first program uses GPS to take photos with an overlap of 50% at 300 metres altitude, based on the vertical camera angle as reported from the device. It assumes the the flight orientation is level:

Screenshot_2015-01-20-23-17-49

The blocks are all drag and drop and get converted into Scheme code which is run by a modified tinyscheme interpreter. The code can be saved and loaded, and I’m planning to make it possible for people to share code via email.
This is a simpler program which takes a photo every 3 seconds and records a handful of sensor data to the database:

Screenshot_2015-01-20-23-18-44

At the bottom you can see a squashed camera preview – I’ve tried various approaches (hiding, scaling to 0 pixels etc) but android requires that there is a preview somewhere in order to take a photo properly. You can view the recorded data on the device too, for checking. There is also a ‘flight mode’ which locks and turns off the screen, and ignores all button events. On some phones you need to take out the battery to stop the program running but unfortunately on others you can still use the power button to close the program.

Screenshot_2015-01-21-01-09-56

Visual programming for environmental research with UAVs

ua3

I’ve recently begun a new project with Karen Anderson who runs the UAV research group at the Exeter University Environment and Sustainability Institute. We’re looking at using commodity technology like android phones for environmental research with drones. Ecology research groups and environmental agencies have started using drones as a replacement for expensive and risky light aircraft for gathering data on changes to landscapes due to climate change and erosion. How can we make tools that are simpler and cheaper for them to set up and use? Can our software also be relevant for children using kites in cities for making their own maps, or farmers wishing to record changes to their own fields themselves?

Enumerating and displaying all the sensors on a phone
Enumerating and displaying all the sensors on a phone

This is a more open ended project than our previous environmental and behavioural projects, so we’re able to approach this with an R&D perspective in relation to the technology. One of the patterns I’ve noticed with this kind of work is that after providing scientists with something that meets their immediate needs, it inspires a ton of new ideas and directions – and I become a bottleneck. Ideally I need to provide something that allows them to build things themselves once they have an understanding of all the possibilities, also adapting to needs ‘in the field’ is an important aspect of the kind of work that they do – which can be in remote locations anywhere in the world.

Some time ago I had a go at porting my musical livecoding language scheme bricks to android for the open sauces project. I’m now applying it as a way of configuring sensor data acquisition and recording by drag/dropping a visual programming language. It’s early days yet, I’m still debugging the (actually rather amazing) android drag/drop API – here are some initial screenshots.

Nested drag/droppable code which gets converted to Scheme code for the tinyscheme interpreter
Nested drag/droppable code which gets converted to Scheme for the tinyscheme interpreter
A block menu works much like Scratch, allowing you to pick new code blocks (this code is nonsense - just testing!)
A block menu works much like Scratch, allowing you to pick new code blocks (this code is nonsense – just testing!)
The "Hello World" program, displays every 3 seconds (even when the app is running in the background)
The "Hello World" program, displays every 3 seconds (even when the app is running in the background)