ODU CCI BATTLE DRONE
A collaborative project designed to bring students together in order to compete against other universities while learning about autonomous systems.
DESCRIPTION
Battle Drones is an experiential learning program funded by the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI). The competition is designed to engage students from institutions across Virginia in autonomous systems and the data and algorithms that drive them. Students from each institution will submit their drone and the improved code to compete in a timed obstacle course. Our objective was to program our drone to successfully maneuver through 10 different gates in numerical order. The fastest drone to complete the obstacle course wins!
SKILLS AND VALUES OBTAINED
Together with a team of six ODU students, we were tasked with building an autonomous drone as well as writing the code for navigation. The learning objectives for this project are as follows:
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1. Computer Vision: Training a Convolutional Neural Network using "YOLO" which is a software with real-time object detection systems.
2. Autonomous Navigation: Learning localization and mapping with onboard computing and limitations.
3. Data handling and software development: MATLAB and Python.
4. Hardware development: Assemble a fully functional drone.
EVIDENCE AND TESTIMONY
The battle drone project was an amazing experience where I was able to collaborate with several like-minded individuals. The course of this project took over 4 months to complete. We came together as a group once a week and spent roughly 3 hours at a time breaking down and understanding the software and assembling the drone. Joining this project I knew I had a lot to learn as this was my first time working with drones as well as the software MATLAB. To that, I can say I have learned the important benefits of drones in the cyber realm.
