Projecte llegit
Títol: Integration of a Gas Leak Sensor on a Verical Take-Off and Landing UAV platform
Director/a: ROJAS GREGORIO, JOSEP IGNASI
Departament: FIS
Títol: Integration of a Gas Leak Sensor on a Verical Take-Off and Landing UAV platform
Data inici oferta: 30-01-2019 Data finalització oferta: 30-09-2019
Estudis d'assignació del projecte:
MU DRONS
| Tipus: Individual | |
| Lloc de realització: Fora UPC | |
| Supervisor/a extern: Miquel Mulet | |
| Institució/Empresa: Venturi | |
| Titulació del Director/a: Grau en Vehicles Aeroepacials (ESEIAAT-U | |
| Paraules clau: | |
| Sensor, drone, UAV, RPAS, UAS, Gas, leak, integration, operation, design, manufacture | |
| Descripció del contingut i pla d'activitats: | |
| The project consists of the physical and electronical integration
of a gas leak detection system on a VTOL UAV. The student will: Set necessary requirements from the client and the sensor; Adapt the sensor to the payload system of the UAV, modifying the sensor composite cover to the sensor shape and the mounting system; Set up the UAV system communication with the sensor; Define the operations protocols to gather commercially useful data; Post-process gathered data for client needs. The student will be using: Rapid prototyping machinery; Composite manufacturing tools; CAD programs; The student will be working full time, dedicating half of the time to the master thesis project and half of the time on manufacturing processes |
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| Overview (resum en anglès): | |
| The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) is becoming increasingly popular in many industrial fields like power utilities and oil and gas. The needs of such industries for reducing maintenance costs and increasing safety led to opening a new market for the UAV in these industries.
This thesis focuses on the oil and gas industries, and studies the opportunity of using an unmanned aerial system for detecting gas leaks along the pipeline systems used in these industries to transport gas very long distances. Since this master thesis has been developed at Venturi Unmanned Technologies, the gas leak sensor has been integrated into their vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV platform. This drone combines the easiness of taking-off and landing of a multicopter with the long range capabilities of fixed-wing aircraft. The versatility of this VTOL platform permits the implementation of various types of sensors and it allows to perform different types of tasks. The gas leak sensor finally integrated in Venturi's VTOL has been selected after going through a market research and is based on TDLAS technology. This technology can detect gas leaks from distances up to one hundred meters and is tuned to have high sensitivity to methane, as this is the main component of the natural gas transported via pipelines. The main part of the thesis consists in the structural integration of the sensor into the given UAV platform. A mount system is designed after going through several iterations in which stress analyses are performed seeking for weight optimization. The electronic integration is studied to prove the complete compatibility between the sensor and the drone. Furthermore, after the integration is realized, a prototype of the sensor is manufactured. The prototype is used to do tests on the newly developed gas leak sensor mount system. To have a complete integration of the system, a new cover for the rear payload compartment is designed to be able to accommodate the gas leak sensor. Finally, the developed gas leak sensor mount system proved to be an adequate solution for the sensor integration into the UAV drone platform. |
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