Industrial Innovation
Fire Vision UAV
Fire Vision UAV was selected as a Capstone in 2020/2021 for 4th year engineering students as a continuation of the previous year ‘Wildfire Detection Sensors’ project. These newly developed sensors will form an integrated multi altitude system that is mounted onto solar charged and battery powered autonomous VTOL aircraft /drones UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) that will cruise above BC forests in predetermined grids or event patterns.
This concept was developed during the severe wildfire season of 2018 in BC when numerous wildfires were burning at one time and destroyed over a million hectares of forests, and the smoke enveloped 1000s of square kilometers. These fires led to destruction on a massive scale.
Since lightning strikes also account for starting approximately 60% of all wildfires in BC, we conceptualized the ability for a UAV to loiter at high altitudes above a fixed point on the earth for days or weeks at a time, so that detection occurs and only minutes or hours elapse after a fire has started instead of multiple days. In this way the smaller fires will be easier to extinguish.
Three other levels of sensor and thermal imaging equipped UAVs, each having unique flight characteristics and altitude operating envelopes will complete our system.
We are developing an early warning system of detection and communication called ARROW that is robust and cost effective, to allow for wide industry adoption.
Other uses of this technology could be for search and rescue purposes, maritime and arctic surveillance, and disaster relief coordination.
This project is in collaboration with the University of British Columbia – Okanagan Campus
Engineering Students Capstone Project
The UBCO Engineering Team
Dr. Jahangir Hossain is the supervising Professor of the Wildfire Detection Sensors team.
Dr. Hossain has held research fellow appointments at Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), Canada, Institute for Telecommunications research (ITR), Australia and McGill University, Canada. He has also gained practical experiences towards developing contemporary wireless communication systems through his industrial appointments. In particular, he has worked at Intel Inc., USA as a research intern and at Redline Communications, Canada as a senior systems engineer. His research has focused on developing bandwidth and energy efficient technologies for wireless systems, which lead to longer battery life and the ability to support high data rate applications for devices such as laptops, smart phones, and tablets.
Garen Goh
Having finished studying aeronautics and electronic devices for 6 months term at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, Garen is now intent on graduating with his bachelors in electrical engineering at the University of British Columbia. Outside of school, he builds and flies his own fixed-wing UAVs. Currently, he is working on obtaining the advanced pilot certification which will allow him to fly in controlled airspace.
Romil Dhagat
Romil is an Electrical Engineering student with a Computer Science minor in University of British Columbia Okanagan, and is set to graduate in May 2021. He is very passionate about electrical engineering that he does work on small electrical and computer science projects every month. He has real world experience as he has worked for an engineering consultant firm called Akron for a summer. Romil is excited to be working with Our Blue Planet as he is very serious about sustainability, climate change and conservation, therefore he hopes he can bring about real change through this partnership.
Erumu Emakpor
Erumu is a fourth-year mechanical engineering student at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. She’s passionate about design engineering, and spent a year and a half on two product engineering teams working on natural gas fuel injectors, and CO2 capture machines. She gained experience in rig design, general manufacturing, and GD&T from her co-op terms. She was a member of the Aero Club for three years and has held long-term interest in all things aviation related. This project balances her interests in aviation and conservation perfectly, and she’s looking forward to working with a team of equally-passionate individuals on something so exciting.
Aditya Sakariya
Aditya is studying Mechanical Engineering at the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus and is expected to graduate in May 2021. He chose Mechanical Engineering as he always had a passion to learn about the design and manufacturing side of machines and complex parts. He has gained valuable experience in the metal powder manufacturing and food processing industry through his co-op work terms. He is excited to work on the Wildfire Detection Sensor project with Our Blue Planet as he is interested in innovative projects that can make a difference.
Akshat Sharma
Akshat is wrapping up his studies at the University of British Columbia in the field of Electrical Engineering. He is very passionate about programming, electrical and embedded systems. He has had valuable co-op work experience in the field of computer science and engineering consulting. Akshat spent 5 months in Singapore working on the automation of search and rescue drones. Recently, he has been developing machine learning applications and is working on a handwriting image detection system. Akshat is very excited to have the opportunity to apply his electrical and computer engineering skills to the socially impactful early wildfire detection project at Our Blue Planet.
