Abstract

Imagine a scenario in which several ships have been severely damaged, and they cannot return to shore. A drone is then deployed from a control center or a search and rescue boat. It will pick up specific distress signals from these ships using a communication payload. The communication payload utilizes the distress signals it receives and will determine the location of the ships. Once the location of the distressed ships is determined, search and rescue (SAR) operations can be deployed. Team 302 designed this communication payload device to attach to the drone. The drone with the attached communication payload is deployed from a rescue boat off the coast. The drone is flown by a controller as it is not autonomous.

The designed payload can detect emergency signals broadcasted from the distressed ships by an antenna. Once amplified, the signal will be sent to an onboard programmable device. Proprietary hardware description code written by the sponsor, Northrop Grumman, will locate where the signal is coming from. Additional code is going to store the source location of the emergency signal on an SD card. A timestamp of when the signal was received by the payload is stored on the SD card. All requisite data acquired from the drone's operation is taken from that SD card and then used by the SAR team.

Overall, the drone can detect the emergency signals from the stranded vessels, save the data on a local storage device, and then return to its starting location so the data can be collected. Once the data has been gathered, search and rescue teams can be dispatched to aid the stranded vessels.