UGCS Laser Falcon Methane Detector

Differences in Radar and Lidar rangefinder types:

• The Methane detector is now configured to work with a Radar rangefinder, Lidar rangefinder, and for terrain follow without a rangefinder in missions. Users may choose which rangefinder they're using from a dropdown in WGC.

  • Surface tracking in auto works comparably between the two sensors, with the Lidar being more responsive to smaller changes.

  • Surface tracking in Loiter for the Radar looks comparable to its performance in Auto, whereas for the Lidar we see filtering of large, flat objects or structures that the sensor more or less equates with "ground".

    • Performance for both sensors should be suitable for hilly/sloped terrain when flying in manual. Radar will be more reactive to sharp elevation shifts, such as flying over a roof.

Difference between Terrain Follow with rangefinder vs no rangefinder:

• Terrain Follow without a rangefinder uses global terrain data to direct the elevation adjustments of the drone based on the information it receives from the terrain tiles that are downloaded. A conversion occurs based on local position in relation to the reference point, which takes into account the Earth’s curvature during this process.

  • As a result of this process, this form of terrain follow is only considering the geography of the terrain on a larger scale, and often may not include structures that are present, though this isn’t always the case.

  • When using terrain follow in this fashion, the drone pauses for a few seconds on the first waypoint of each turn, but will swing into the next line of the survey as usual when motion resumes. This currently is a byproduct of the conversion process that occurs.

• Terrain follow with a rangefinder is actually known as surface tracking. As the name implies, it functions based on the active readings that the rangefinder gets from the ground and classifies it a local Terrain data, which then sends corrections to the GPS to adjust height based on the object detected.

• This particular senor must and will only use surface tracking

SkyHub & Methane Detector Sensor (Laser Falcon) Procedure

• Plan your mapping mission in WGC. Be sure to download any offline maps as Wi-Fi will not be available for the flight. The mission speed defaults to 3 m/s and is able to be changed 

• The sensor samples data at 10 Hz, averaging 5 readings to record 2 per second. Therefore, you take a sample every 1.5 meters flying at 3 m/s.

• Mounting SkyHub on drone

  • Slide SkyHub mount onto the drone with the colored ports to the front of the drone.

  • Lock down dovetail mount.

  • From the SkyHub, attach the power and AUX (SkyHub end of the cable is to the white connector).

  • Attach the power connection (2 similar ports on the side of the SkyHub; either is fine) to the drone from the red port on the SkyHub.

  • Attach the Laser Falcon into the bottom of the SkyHub’s silver dovetail and tighten the second dovetail’s locking screw

  • Generation 1: Attach the micro-USB from the Laser Falcon to the SkyHub’s USB-A port (either)

  • Generation 1: Attach the mini-USB from the Laser Falcon to the SkyHub’s remaining USB-A port

  • Generation 2: Attached the blue end of the cable to the SkyHub

●        Mounting the downward lidar range finder

• Place the downward lidar sensor under the Ranger Pro where there is 3M commercial Velcro (same material that holds the antenna onto the legs of the drone).

• Plug in the sensor to the port just below/above the single mini-HDMI port.

• The sensor will be powered with the drone, but the drone will only use the downward lidar sensor with the UgCS Methane Detector selected in WGC. Under general settings, the downward lidar sensor must be checked. The sensor will be active in both loiter and mission modes.

●        Power Up

• Power on drone and controller. Open WISPR Ground Control (WGC) and select the UgCS Methane Detector payload.

• Restart drone if prompted.  When the drone is powered, the SkyHub will automatically power up. The startup takes 1 minute.

• Turn on the methane detector after SkyHub has booted.

• Swipe down on the controller and click the far-right button to enable hotspot. This will disconnect you from Wi-Fi if you are automatically connected.

• On your tablet or computer with the licensed version of UgCS, use the Wi-Fi to connect to the Android HereLink Controller (default name is AndroidAP). If a password is enabled, it may be “password.” To change or if unknown, swipe down on the controller, select the wheel (settings), go down to “more,” select “Tethering & Portable Hotspot” and click “Set up Wi-Fi hotspot” where you can change the name of the hotspot and password. Leave the security as WPA2 PSK.

• Open UgCS App (green icon). You will hear a ding and/or an alarm as it loads the telemetry data from the drone via the controller. The data will be on the stream APM-1.

• Once you see telemetry data at the upper right-hand screen open the UgCS Custom Payload Monitor (blue icon).

• The UgCS Custom Payload Monitor should show a green light for “UgCS,” “Drone,” and “UgCS SkyHub.” If it does not, then repeat the steps above as one step was incomplete or done out of order.

• To view incoming bathometry data, click “start” and press the “+” to add the methane monitoring.

●        Taking off

• Plan mission. Upload the mission and press the paper airplane at the upper left corner of WGC and slide the bar to begin the mission. The drone will arm, take off to the programmed height and go to the start of the mission.

• Data will begin to log, automatically, once the drone is armed and stop when the drone is disarmed. Alternatively, you can start and stop through the CPM application.

●        Conclusion of survey

• Once complete, use the same tablet or computer to connect to SkyHub Wi-Fi. The default password is 12341234. 

• Navigate back to UgCS Payload Monitor (blue icon) and go to “Tools.”

• Select either today or all dates, to download, select your designated folder output and download data.

• Alternatively, the data can be accessed with an FTP client such as WINSCP (free application https://winscp.net/eng/download.php ). In WINSCP, create a new site with the following information:

  • File Protocol – SFTP

  • Host name – 10.1.0.1

  • Port Number – 22

  • Username – root

  • Password – (it is blank, no password)

  • Once connected, you can browse the saved files and download. The files are located /data/skyhub.conf. You are looking for the date-time-pergam-falcon-full.log (example: 2022-04-25-12-45-01-pergam-falcon-full.log).

  • You can also use this tool to delete data also.

• Survey and downloading is now complete and all systems can be shutdown. Just removing the power from the drone will power off the sensor and SkyHub.

Processing Methane Detector Sensor (Laser Falcon) In LMC Software

Below are the steps to process XXXXX-YYYYY-pergam-falcon-full.log (where XXXXX is the date and YYYYY is the time).

•  Open the LMC software which can be downloaded: https://pergam-suisse.ch/software

• Navigate to the upper left corner and click on the three (3) bars

• Navigate to “open file” and select “XXXXX-YYYYY-pergam-falcon-full.log”

• At the right of the top graph, unclick the first, third and fourth check box so that the only box selected is named “1: Normal.” Once you unclick the items crossed out below, click “ok” to the “processing?” question.

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• Adjust the settings specific to the flight and as required by the facility/client (explanation below)

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• The facility has a reported maximum methane concentration of 200 ppm limit where above it is considered a leak. This is below the Federal limit of 500 ppm.

• If necessary, you can specify the distance over which leaks are “combined”. Here we specified the distance to 3.3 feet (1 m) where all leaks would then be represented as a single leak. Lets say readings were every 0.5m along the flight and we want to combine these to show a leak every 3m, therefore 3 would be entered here. Recall that the unit takes 2 readings a second

• The drone took off upwind of the site, reached a height of 65.6 feet (20.0 m) and was paused (pilot pressed the A button), let the drone sit for 30 seconds and observed the CPM where it was noted to be an average reading of 25 ppm. The pilot then pressed the D button to resume mission which was at a height of 65.6 feet (20 m) that was specified in WGC. Alternatively, the atmospheric methane concentration is usually 2.0 PPM. Therefore, at a specified flight height of 65.6 feet (20 m) the concentration is 40 ppm*m which could have been entered here. As shown, the methane detection value will increase the atmospheric methane by 40 ppm

• Below is a shot of the entire program with the settings applied:

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• Any intensity value (purple graph line not shown above) under 20 is likely a false detection

• From this screen you can open the data in Google Earth, then in Google Earth right-click and “save-as” with the file type as a .KML

• You can also create a report, export the data as a .TXT etc