GreenSpace

Guadalajara, Jalisco | Drones and Satellites for Urban Development

DroNet

High-Level Project Summary

The drone technology is often expensive or difficult to get. DroNet is a drone network capable of establishing contact from user to drone owner based on the characteristics required from the device, distance, and characteristics of the situation to solve, this way drones can get shared easily and projects that use them will be more affordable and accessible, as the work groups won’t have to own one at all. Emergencies are threats that can end with the lives of hundreds of people, and drones have demonstrated to be a useful tool to save them, as Prado (2016) states. With DroNet governments and other institutions should be able to request drone services with high-priority and quick action.

Link to Project "Demo"

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FndV44LTqWM

Link to Final Project

This is a a minimum viable product, even though we recognize it can be highly improved, most functions are not included, and errors may appear easily. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JzAv2KFL06vtFkvj6iggQf8SebPP-oJq/view?usp=sharing

Detailed Project Description

DroNet is a network of drone consumers and owners that will allow the exchange of contact information in a direct manner, allowing for fast and efficient transactions that reduce the cost of drone usage in diverse projects, producing a faster development in drone technology and its applications in our daily lives. The most important characteristic of this network is the creation of drone infrastructure for organized volunteers in case of natural disaster and the development of other sustainable projects that use drones.


The first step that users will have to complete is their registration into the system, where they will upload some information into a server that includes: location, drones owned and what types of drones are, and their contact information. Users will classify their drones into the following types: Irrigation, fumigation, transport, recollection, and video.

Then, users will be able to submit, for an affordable fee, a request for drones that must specify drone types required, the maximum acceptable distance from the consumer, and number of drones, as well as their specs in a footnote. Owners that match characteristics with a submitted request will be notified and contact information will be shared for them to reach an agreement.

Some users will be identified as rescue groups, governments or other civil protection organizations at the moment of registration, the profile must be verified and then, they will be able to submit a high priority request for drones. These special requests notify all drone owners in spite of their availability or drone type and will exchange contact information instantly, this has the purpose of getting the biggest number of volunteer pilots quickly.

Another function that DroNet has is that it will notify all drone owners of an area that has a satellite identified threat that will possibly, imminently, or presently occur to have a quicker and effective reaction than organizations that require the managing of bigger equipment, preventing more damages and possibly saving lives because of the time it can save.


The hardware used is some computers connected making a server, as we are not able to create one by our own. The programming languages used are: html for giving the software the necessary structure to support the project, css for the user interface and interactions with the system, and php for the database. An initial inversion needed for the project to start is the presence of drones, as well as the maintenance of the equipment. 


We decided to work on this project as there are lots of applications for drones in case of emergencies and satellital tools that can help to use them more efficiently and potentially save lives, helping in the 11th UN sustainable development goals with the formation of resilient cities. In the matter of sustainable urban development, we believe our software will provide some infrastructure to other projects that use drones making progress in the 12th UN goal “Responsible consumption and production” and indirectly helping in all kinds of sustainable projects that may use drones generated in this event.


Business Model


DroNet will work in a P2P (Peer to peer) model with a structure of hybrid servers, this means that there will be a central server that stores and uses some information about the users, but most of it, such as communication with other people, will be non-centralized. 

DroNet will allow the usage of drones by privateers in a cheaper way by creating channels of communication between owners and consumers directly, reducing the total amount of drones that will be needed in the market, as some of them will be reused several times.


With the exchange of information, people will reach their own agreements of payments and conditions, but the submission of a request will have a fee for maintaining the network operational. Government funding could be an important part of the project, as it provides a good infrastructure for creating resilient cities.


Our principal clients include: content creators, workgroups that use drone technology, governments, civil protection organizations, and research groups.


Content creators: There are some content creators that use drones to capture some pictures from the sky, improving their work. Some of these people are not able to afford a drone and would like to get some recordings with this technology, so they will use DroNet to achieve an agreement with someone that has a drone in its possession.


Work and research groups: There is some research and projects that will require one time use of drone technology and it does not make sense to buy all equipment, also some groups cannot afford to buy a device, they will use DroNet to have access to drone technology at a lower cost.


Governments and civil protection organizations: In governments, some functions could be classified into the content creator and work group clients, so this point is to focus on high priority requests. With DroNet, rescue of people will be faster as volunteer pilots will be recruited quickly, increasing the amount of information these organizations have available in seconds after the emergency happens.


In terms of numbers, our project will need the inversion of $200,000 mxn for the acquisition of 4 drones, the publishing and maintenance of the software and database, insumes and all the expenses. These drones will be used principally by content creators for the project to get known, after that, many users will be registered and we may get some utilities that will be shared as the table* says. Government funding could play a crucial role in the development of the project, as well as some robotic teams in Mexican states, such as those from Universidad Tecmilenio that participate in FIRST®.

Space Agency Data

A function that DroNet has is that it will notify all drone owners of an area that has a satellite identified threat that will possibly, imminently, or presently occur to have a quicker and effective reaction than organizations that require the managing of bigger equipment, preventing more damages and possibly saving lives because of the time it can save.


The contemplated satellite information used are hurricane detectors (https://ciencia.nasa.gov/la-nasa-y-los-huracanes-cinco-datos), earthquake forecasts (https://ciencia.nasa.gov/science-at-nasa/2003/11aug_earthquakes) , and space fire detectors (https://ciencia.nasa.gov/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21aug_1), but it can include other detectors and predictions in the future.

Hackathon Journey

In GreenSpace, we all agree that Space Apps experience was somewhat stressful, but it was a lot of fun and it let us to know more interesting people from other places of the country. The biggest learning is to work with people that we barely know, because our team was made through a team formation dynamic, but we also learnt other important things such as organization and delegation of responsibilities. We chose this challenge because we were inspired by all the things that drones could do to help society and because we thought we could make an important advance in the development of this technology. For the development of DroNet, we followed an organized and flexible plan that used all our abilities at its maximum, also we were constantly giving feedback and improving what we thought could be better. Democratic processes like voting were taken into consideration regularly for the unity of the entire team. The most important setbacks were some events outside of our control that limited some members to work and the online format of the event because it led to some communication problems that affected the entire team, but with flexibility and a good organization we achieved to keep the workflow going. We are thankful to all our teammates and the organizers of Space Apps Guadalajara for all the tools they gave us, as well as a special thanks to Francisco Rendón that helped us to develop our business model and Walter Cantú that helped us to develop our app.

Video: https://youtu.be/723-pW2xG60

References

Hurricane detector

https://ciencia.nasa.gov/la-nasa-y-los-huracanes-cinco-datos

Earthquake forecast

https://ciencia.nasa.gov/science-at-nasa/2003/11aug_earthquakes

Space fire detector

https://ciencia.nasa.gov/science-at-nasa/2001/ast21aug_1

Earth Observations Toolkit for Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements

https://eo-toolkit-guo-un-habitat.opendata.arcgis.com/


We used MIT App Inventor for the development of our minimum viable product. http://appinventor.mit.edu/



Tags

#Drones #DroNet #GreenSpace #UrbanDevelopment

Global Judging

This project has been submitted for consideration during the Judging process.

Drones and Satellites for Urban Development

Data from Earth-observing satellites, airborne science platforms, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and in situ platforms can be used to address development challenges around the world. Your challenge is to use this data to enable local stakeholders to develop more sustainable, disaster-risk resilient, and inclusive urban plans.