About us
The Drones Team is responsible for every facet of our UAV competition. They tackle challenges related to designing and building the drone, programming its functions, and strategizing optimal flight paths for peak performance. While they operate with a degree of independence, they are an essential part of Caleuche, contributing their expertise and innovation to our collective mission.
Key Systems and Projects
UAV platform
The UAV platform was completely redesigned, taking in the lessons learned in the development cycle and participation for the 2022 RobotX Maritime Challenge. The focus of the new platform was to be flexible and extendable, allowing the team to change or add components easily in case it was deemed necessary.
A bigger UAV platform was chosen to meet the team’s payload needs and the software architecture was built around PX4 and ROS2, allowing the team to use the development experience gained in the WAM-V and apply it to the UAV.
Tin Can Gripper
The Task 7 tin can gripper was designed to take advantage of our UAVs landing leg configuration and low center of gravity.
The griper has a solid outer area with a moving sweeper that’s pulled by two stepper motors with belts.
This design allows a 0.25 square meters pick up area, if the tin can is in any location inside this area, it will get pined against the wall by the sweeper, allowing the UAV to pick it up without the need of being extremely precise in the landing.
Drone Team
