Team Resources:

Weekly Status Reports

Google Folder w/ Team Documents

Github Repository

Project Documents:

Abstract

Project Proposal Presentation

Design Review Presentation

Design Review Report

Final Presentation

Final Poster

Final Video

Final Report

Introduction:

Whether for black ops, reconnaissance, monitoring critical rescue missions, or simply vlogging, people would love the ability to easily access live aerial footage of themselves or another target. However, learning to control and maneuver a drone precisely enough to capture stable video for aerial footage is difficult and wasted effort. Our project, Hawkeye, aims to handle that for you. Hawkeye is a drone that can autonomously follow you using a cheap camera and stream live video of your movements to a wearable display. It also saves the footage to an SD card for later analysis/use if needed.

 

We expect to build:

1. Drone communication: Wifi-based exchange of tracking data, compressed video feed from a 12MP camera, and motion commands with a small microcontroller.
2. The “brains”: a board that is located within a user’s backpack (or on their shoulder) that performs the detection of the user / location tracking and plans out future motion
3. Display: a wearable wrist display that shows the live video shot from the drone

 

Goals of our project:

1. A drone that users can trust to accurately follow them without needing constant attention and worry. The user will have a clean and easy-to-access display, giving constant feedback about the drone’s tracking status, battery life, and any issues that arise. 
2. Safety will always be a concern for drones that fly at high altitudes, so our drone will have well-defined fallback behavior in case the target is lost, the drone runs out of battery, the drone has trouble keeping up, or flying conditions are too dangerous.  

 

What makes our project cool and unique:

• Drones themselves are cool and unique! The ability to accurately track a user from 30 feet in the air would’ve seemed like something out of a sci-fi movie 30 years ago.
• Imagine Call of Duty but in real life: having a UAV to track your enemies and receiving their positions in real time on your wearable display. 
• With Hawkeye,  you can shoot exciting videos of sports events (your Turkey Bowl game), or have a hands-free vlogging experience.
• Want to catch your cheating spouse/partner? Hawkeye is what you need. Live tracking and video allows you to see where your spouse/partner goes.
• It’s fun to use! More practical purposes aside, just imagine having your own personal drone “buddy” following you around as you go about your day.