Siddharth Gupta
Pronouns: he/him
Research Mentor(s): Kimberlee Kearfott
Research Mentor School/College/Department: NERS/BME / Engineering
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 2 (10:00am – 10:50am)
Authors: Siddharth Gupta, Jordyn Vermut, Hythem Beydoun, Meredith Doan, Kabir Khwaja, Kimberlee Kearfott
Abstract
The Intelligent Radiation Awareness Drone (iRAD-Lite) is an affordable copter drone with a radiation sensor payload for high school students to learn about robotics, instrumentation, mapping, fabrication, and radiation. An interdisciplinary undergraduate team is designing the entire iRAD-Lite system to create an affordable and simple drone. Minimizing damage to the drone is critical for lowering costs during the design-build-test cycle and the final deployment. Because iRAD-Lite will not incorporate state-of-the-art collision avoidance instrumentation and software, coupled with the inexperience of its youthful end-users, crashes will likely be frequent. This work will focus on damage-reducing strategies adopted during the design-build-test process and incorporated into the final design. One key action is the redesign of parts that are susceptible to damage discovered during various phases of the testing process. Sometimes parts may be intentionally designed to fail to protect more expensive components. Sometimes parts break because of flawed design or poor fabrication method choices. Knowledge of weaknesses in the final design allows informed production of spare parts. Three-dimensional (3D) printing enables rapid parts fabrication as flaws are revealed during the design and testing phases. Some items may also be more affordably mass-produced than through purchase. Different filaments, settings, and 3D printer characteristics will be compared with each other and more traditional fabrication methods for all iRAD-Lite components. This investigation’s findings will help keep costs low for iRAD-Lite and its users by minimizing the damage the drone encounters over its lifetime. Plans are that high schools will receive a kit containing all components, accompanied by assembly and operational manuals. The design-build-test experience of the undergraduate iRAD-Lite team, including details about damage-reduction strategies, will also be produced.
