AT209 Lab 9: BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight)

 Description:

In this lab, we introduced procedures for flying Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS). To stay within the regulations laid out in 14 CFR Part 107, we could not actually fly out of line of sight, but we simulated this by having the Remote Pilot in Command (RPIC) turn their back to the drone and the Visual Observer (VO) would watch the drone and give commands to the RPIC. The RPIC would have the camera pointed straight at the ground so they could not use that for navigation. The goal was to have the drone take off and fly over three separate targets and take pictures when of them while being guided by the visual observer. This required good communication skills between the RPIC and the VO. We split the lab up into groups of three. One person was designated as the RPIC, one as the VO, and the third was there to time how long it took the RPIC and VO to reach all of the targets and take pictures. The RPIC would fly three runs over the targets, the first one being at a high altitude, the second being at a low altitude, and the third was done at a low altitude while flying the drone backward. After the RPIC would complete their three runs, the group members would switch roles until every group member had done all of the tasks. The times of the courses were used to evaluate how effective the flying and communication was. Prior to the lab, we set forth communication standards we would use to standardize control inputs. Here is the table of standards our group agreed on, with another table of the pictures taken at each target while I was RPIC for my three runs.

Challenges:

One of the largest challenges faced in the lab was the weather as it was cold and windy, so the RPIC had trouble operating controls due to numb hands, and the wind would blow the drone off course slightly. The GPS on the drone would try to correct for wind but could only do so much. Another challenge of the lab was to effectively communicate between the RPIC and the VO. The VO would be able to see the drone and the target and know where the drone needs to fly, but it is hard to communicate that to the RPIC with only works. For example, if the drone needed to yaw left to continue towards the target, the VO would say "yaw left" but the RPIC would not know how much to yaw left, and relied on the VO to say "stop" at just the right second to get the drone pointed in the right direction. There was also a lag between what the VO would command and when the RPIC would input the command.

Improvements/ future work

Future improvements could be made by getting lucky on the weather of the day of the flight, that way the RPIC would be able to be more effective at controlling the drone. Also, we were able to build communication skills, so the VO and RPIC would be able to have more effective communication and control inputs next time because now they both have experience with the BVLOS procedures.

Successes

Our group had success through the words we chose to use for commands to control the aircraft. There was suggested vocabulary prior to the lesson such as using the word "roll" for side-to-side movements and using "stop" if there was an emergency and needed the drone to return immediately. Our group decided prior to the lesson to set different vocabulary standards that made more sense to us. Instead of saying "roll" we said "right" and "left" to command side-to-side movement, and if we wanted the aircraft to yaw left or right, we would say "yaw left" and "yaw right". This worked very well for us and I would use this again next time. We decided to come up with a different code work for if there was an emergency, "pineapple", and we used the phrase "stop" to tell the RPIC to take out their control input and let the aircraft hover.