Saksham Bhutani

Saksham Bhutani

Computer Vision | Deep Learning | Robotics

Trident: SAE Aero Design East (2022)

Trident Flagship'22

Project Mission:

Simulate the fighting of forest fires by designing and building a radio-controlled primary aircraft (PA) capable of releasing secondary autonomously guided payload delivery aircraft (PADA) and supply payloads for extinguishing the fire.

The PADA needs to be an autonomous glider with propulsion under 255 grams and equipped with vision-based navigation. The PADA also needs to deploy a ground transport vehicle (GTV) that is capable of navigating through a maze autonomously. The primary payload is water, and the Final Flight Score is directly proportional to the amount of water delivered, the number of PADAs autonomously landing in a drop zone, and the efficiency of the GTV in navigating the maze.

My Role:

  • Lead of the Avionics Department of Team Assailing Falcons.

  • Developed the Data Acquisition System (DAS) including the Graphical User Interface (GUI) and the hardware implementation. DAS is used to receive live telemetry data from various sensors onboard and features a control panel to drop the payloads.

  • Designed the Avionics system for the Primary Aircraft, including the selection of appropriate components and the integration of all systems.

Primary Aircraft

  • Developed the Drop Zone Detection System for the PADA, which uses vision-based navigation to locate and fly to designated drop zones for payload delivery. Created the GTV ground vehicle and developed its autonomous navigation system using vision-based techniques.

PADA

  • Led the drafting of the Technical Design Report containing every aspect of making the aircraft in detail.

  • Led the team website development for the year 2022: link | archive.

  • Brought key sponsors like TMotors, Holybro, and APC on board.

Project Accomplishments:

  • 1st Worldwide in Technical Design Report - SAE International Aero Design Competition 2022 (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)

  • 1st Worldwide in Oral Presentation - SAE International Aero Design Competition 2022 (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)

  • 3rd Rank Overall Worldwide - SAE International Aero Design Competition 2022 (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)

Placks Board Certificate Participation Certificate