Drone Traffic Control System With Charging Base
Problem - The future of delivery is autonomous vehicles & drones. One of the biggest limiting factors for drone delivery is the small delivery radius as each drone needs to have enough charge to complete a round trip [Warehouse <-> Customer].
Goal - To build a network of a drone landing pads which charge incoming drones and hopefully are capable of performing a package swap.
A Hub is located on a rooftop with multiple landing pads. Each Hub updates the server with available charging spots on landing pads.
Using interleaved copper plates of +5V & GND, the probes on the drone will charge the drone once they touch the copper plates on the landing pad. This design is more efficient than wireless charging & works well with drones carrying a package beneath them.
First prototype is ready. Modelled landing base on Fusion 360. 3D printed base. Cut copper into thin strips using a Waterjet cutting machine.
Drone Traffic Control System in Action
This is a video going over different aspects of our capstone project design