First underground drone flight

a reply to: Zaphod58

Heck yes! They could develope a tiny one, that could be outfitted with a small lighting system and literally fly into the engine for a maintenance check or pre op.

a reply to: Macenroe82

I can think of quite a few people that would be more than happy to see that happen. Right now the smallest guy in the shop gets tossed down the intake and into the exhaust to check fan blades.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Yes I understand lifi- I've been working with local dnr here trying to follow a certain invasive species killing out ash trees. The small network we've built uses ir game cams (modified) and sound recorders a high speed, primitive radar system for tracking the insects when they travel. After applying a coating that sticks to the antennae of the beetles we literally see them move and are modeling the info to see why and what triggers their behavior. Our network is small but effective, and hopefully will get more funding to expand.

Hats off to you sir.
Absolute excellence.

Just don't get lost in corporate world, a mind like yours would be a terrible loss to paperwork and grandstanding of corporate greed.(not your greed-theirs)

a reply to: Zaphod58

Oh god, that has got to be the lil guys least favourite task lol.
I'd be terrified that some bozos gonna jump in the cock pit and fire it up to test something

a reply to: Macenroe82

When I was a teenager, I got many "hey, he's a good size to shove down an intake" looks. Heh. Would have done it in a heartbeat too if they would have let me.

But I bet they're paying really close attention to the sounds around them to listen for the JFS spinning up so they can dive out if they have to.

I wonder if you could set up a special camera to do an NDI on the blades. It would have to be a pretty small drone though.

a reply to: Natas0114

Well thank you very much.

Do you have to catch your test group or do you have a trap that somehow applies the coating to their antenna?
From what you described, That's sounds like a pretty cool job.

Using a multi-spec camera on one of my drones, I am able to pinpoint different Species of trees in very large ortho mosaic photos. Dead trees also are easy to pick out. I have seen large clusters of dead trees in areas, then directly next to them - large groups of healthy trees.
I wonder if what I inadvertently noticed was the aftermath of the emerald ash beetle, or the horror or the forest - the spruce beetle.

That actually would make a lot of sense now that I think about it.

a reply to: Zaphod58

I domsomething like that already actually...just from photos.
Underground our vent system is reliant or fans and vent tubing to move the air.

Instead of taking the fan down, I send my drone rolling through the vent tube up to the fan. I do this for every fan on the level - so about 15-20. It takes about 30 minutes total. While in the tubing, I take a series of pictures of each fan.
These pictures will tell me if the fans need any maintenance of some sort.
I also create a 3D model using photogrammetry. I then compare the blade pitch and placement with the previous 3D model specific to that fan.

If there's any deviation or visible displacement, I send a report to maintenance and they go check it out... with the information of what to expect.
So by taking the guess work out, the labour, and downtime, it saves quite a bit of money doing it this way.
The thing in mining is everything, and I mean absolutely e dry thing costs silly amounts of money.
Even an hour of down time, from the scoop trams not retrieving ore, costs the company close to $100,000.

a reply to: Macenroe82

That would actually be perfect for inspecting fan blades in an engine. For being made of such strong material they're incredibly fragile. I've seen more than one engine failure from a cracked blade, because the crack couldn't be seen with the naked eye. If they had used a high definition camera system they probably would have seen it.

God I hated engine issues.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Another thing I've been looking into, has been integrating a Geo SLAM unit onto a drone.
What it is, is a handheld laser scanner.
I want to attach one to my drone and fly it into an open stope or mine drift to map the area.
It provides in real time a point cloud of the area on to a tough book tablet.

The beauty of it is, that you do not need to be standing still for it to accurately generate the point cloud. So the drone can fly into the area, then fly back out and by the time its back in your hands you have a full 3D scan of the entire area.

It's such cutting edge tech, that I can see the next gen. changing the face of surveying.

Geo SLAM

a reply to: Zaphod58

Your not kidding about the blades being fragile!
I could be completely wrong, but when I think of an engine of a plane, I liken it to being very similar to our vent fans.
Recently One of our fans was damaged by an ore blast. One of the workers went to turn it on and I guess the blade came loose and completely blew the fan apart. These are 150 hp fans, so there not exactly small.
The worker was extremely lucky that the blades blew out the opposite side or he would have been ripped apart.
We also relocated our fan switch after that...we'll out of the direct line of fire. Lol

a reply to: Macenroe82

Yes, your spot on with the dead and live patches of trees. And yes we use birch sap with a chemical tracer that "lights" them up. Emerald Ash borers are exactly what we're after.
It sounds more fun than it is, and it's volunteer work. I'm actually a homebuilder/logger, I just care about the ecology. They are extremely destructive and hard to get ahead of. We were using purple triangle sticky traps for counts, but something more proactive was needed, and a local donated enough cash to fund a pilot program. It's not easy, but we are starting to make some headway.
And I hate the spruce beetles as well. They are destructive and they bite like hell.
Full spectrum cameras and filters help plot course of dea/live swaths, but by then we're too late.
Thanks for the interest.

a reply to: Macenroe82

We had 4 B-1s divert in, each had to have an engine pulled, and one had to have it changed. They had all suffered damage from bits of ice going through them when they climbed through a thunderstorm.

That Geo SLAM is seriously cool. I was thinking something along the lines of ultrasound to map the aircraft structure as well as the fan blades.

Back in the 90s, we had a Depot tech come out, I don't remember what the cause was, but he had to take an oscilloscope and ultrasound probe, and check around every rivet on the wing, top and bottom, on both wings. He had to sit there watching the scope, and not where the probe was, because if there was a crack under the skin, it would cause a spike. It took 3-4 days to do each wing.

a reply to: Zaphod58

Jesus, every single rivet!.... Is it the same thing for todays standards? Or has there been something new implemented?
That is a very necessary yet time consuming task

Thanks for the post, this will be useful to protect against organized stalking, in a cave or mine shaft.

This devise could also be used in search and rescue operations after major disasters in relation to distressed buildings.

Congratulations

You should consider making a larger version.

a reply to: Macenroe82

Wow. What have you done?

Skynet is here and it is all thanks to you.

a reply to: Kashai

That is actually something I've been thinking about. It can enter just about any place that has a 18 inch opening. So downed buildings or rubble, could easily be navigated

a reply to: Winstonian

Well I'm not trying to take over the world with it lol.
I just want it to assist in saving lives!

a reply to: Macenroe82


Kind of different but consider that there is no GPS on Mars and caves appear as potential habitats as they could be sealed.


This reminds me of the PUPS in the movie Prometheus.

NASA might be interested in this, seriously.

Orbital photographic and remote sensing surveys of the Moon and Mars both show extensive evidence of lava tube formation. These natural caverns form as the result of lava flows that have overcrusted to form subsurface flowing rivers of lava; as they drain an open conduit is left behind. The scale of these caverns can be inferred from the related sinuous rilles which represent lava tubes that have collapsed and nearby craters which have clearly defined topographic features. From this we estimate that the dimensions of lunar tubes are much larger than terrestrial lava tubes. The size of these rilles and associated topographic ridges (which may represent sections of a tube that have not collapsed) suggest cross-sectional widths on the order of hundreds of meters, lengths of tens of kilometers, and roofs that are meters thick.

www.lpi.usra.edu...