UAAV Water Sensing Payload for Multi-Depth Lake Monitoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current methods for monitoring bodies of water, such as aquaculture farms, are labor-intensive, resource-inefficient, and lack the ability to effectively sample water at different depths and locations, leading to inadequate water quality management and potential safety issues.
Innovation Solution
An unmanned aerial-amphibious vehicle (UAAV) system equipped with a remote sensing payload that wirelessly tethers to an edge sensing platform, allowing for synchronous operation and sampling of water at various depths and locations, while being deployed and extracted by the UAAV.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If pond buoy sensing systems are used, then water quality monitoring is provided at fixed locations, but the system becomes expensive to implement across multiple locations and lacks mobility
Solution Approach 1:
The patent transitions from static buoy systems to a dynamic aerial-amphibious vehicle that can move between locations. The vehicle can fly over water bodies and deploy sensors to multiple positions, providing both fixed-location monitoring capability and deployment flexibility through its mobile nature.
Solution Approach 2:
The aerial-amphibious vehicle acts as an intermediary between the operator and the water body. It carries and deploys sensor payloads that can be released into the water, allowing indirect monitoring of water quality parameters without requiring permanent infrastructure at each monitoring location.
2Reliability
If truck-mounted sensing platforms are used, then water quality can be monitored at accessible locations, but monitoring beyond water edges is not possible
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces aerial dimension to the monitoring system. The vehicle can fly over water bodies and deploy sensors at various positions across the entire water surface, not limited to edges or accessible areas. This three-dimensional approach (air, surface, water column) dramatically expands the monitorable area.
3Adaptability or versatility
If waterproof drones are used, then aerial monitoring is possible, but direct water sampling is challenging due to design limitations
Solution Approach 1:
The system is divided into separate functional modules: the aerial vehicle provides mobility and positioning, while detachable sensor payloads perform water sampling. The payloads can be released from the vehicle into the water, allowing the aerial platform to maintain its flight capabilities while the submerged sensors perform reliable water quality measurement and sampling.
4Measurement precision
If manual water sampling is performed, then detailed water quality analysis is possible, but labor costs and resource inefficiency increase
Solution Approach 1:
The sensor payloads are autonomous and self-contained, performing water sampling and quality measurement without requiring manual intervention. Once deployed, they independently collect water samples, measure parameters such as dissolved oxygen, temperature, and pH, and transmit data back to the vehicle, eliminating the need for labor-intensive manual sampling while maintaining measurement precision.
Data Source
AI summary
An exemplary platform independent sensing platform system and method that streamline the sensing operations of unmanned aerial-amphibious vehicles for remote or wide area analysis and/or monitoring of a body of water. The exemplary sensing platform system and method employ a remote sensing payload that wirelessly tethers to an edge sensing platform to operate synchronously with one another as the remote sensing payload samples a body of water at different depths and at different locations while being deployed and extracted from a given different locations by the unmanned aerial-amphibious vehicle.