A project being developed by Professor Utpal Roy and Ph.D. student Yunpeng Li is one of six finalists in the. The Genius NY program is the world鈥檚 largest business competition for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), and drew 250 entries from all around the world.
A project being developed by College of Engineering & Computer Science Professor Utpal Roy, left, and Ph.D. student Yunpeng Li is one of six finalists in the Genius NY 2018 Competition.
UAS have become widely known in recent years as photographers, research scientists, small businesses and large companies like Amazon and FedEx look at potential uses. Safe UAS operations require traffic management systems and product lifecycle management (PLM) systems to trace the history of each component of the UAS along its lifecycle stages in case of any accidents or incidents.
Roy and Li saw a need for software that would integrate PLM concepts with necessary data analytics tools, Internet-of-Things functionality and UAS operating systems to provide a full spectrum solution to users who are involved in custom-made UAS development and operations.
From there, a smart software system would be able to access and evaluate a UAS鈥 autonomous and intelligent decisions based on real-time activity data collected throughout its lifecycle. 鈥淥ne data source is related to the UAS itself, the flight logs, vibration data, battery and rotor data; UAS developers need to analyze that data to better tune performance,鈥 says Li.
鈥淭he platform we are developing would collect and aggregate a UAS鈥 information related to all its lifecycle activities under one umbrella, and help extract knowledge from data to make intelligent decisions鈥 says Roy. 鈥淚t is a platform where you can feed back all this data for analysis.鈥
Roy and Li say their new company, UsPLM, will provide user friendly, affordable and customizable software that will help UAS users and manufacturers sort through the massive amount of data related to the UAS development and operations.
The UsPLM platform has another important benefit for UAS manufacturers. If the software and services being developed by UsPLM are integrated in the national UAS systems, individual drones could contribute to a large data set that can identify potential device or software flaws, or necessary recalls.
鈥淎 system to analyze everything from design to operations,鈥 says Li. 鈥淒ata analytics is a key enabler for the advancement and safety of UAS technology.鈥
Roy鈥檚 research group is also working on UAS fleet technology and customizable sensor options for UAS models. In April,聽聽will pitch their technologies and their business plan to a panel of judges. The teams will be competing for one of three grand prize investments鈥 $1 million, $600,000 and $400,000. The remaining three runner-up teams will each receive a $250,000 investment.
Roy and Li are grateful for the help and support they received from the College of Engineering & Computer Science and the Center for Advanced Systems and Engineering (CASE) at 黑料不打烊. They also plan to work with the Blackstone Launchpad entrepreneurship program at 黑料不打烊 and colleagues at the in developing the business plan for UsPLM.
鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 do it alone,鈥 says Roy.
About 黑料不打烊
Founded聽in 1870, 黑料不打烊 is a private international research university聽dedicated to advancing knowledge and fostering student success through teaching聽excellence,聽rigorous scholarship and interdisciplinary research. Comprising 11聽academic schools and colleges, the University has a long legacy of excellence聽in the liberal arts, sciences and聽professional disciplines that prepares聽students for the complex challenges and emerging opportunities of a rapidly聽changing world. Students enjoy the resources of a 270-acre main聽campus and聽extended campus venues in major national metropolitan hubs and across three聽continents. 黑料不打烊鈥檚 student body is among the most diverse for an聽institution of its聽kind across multiple dimensions, and students typically represent聽all 50 states and more than 100 countries. 黑料不打烊 also has a long legacy of聽supporting veterans and is home to聽the nationally recognized Institute for聽Veterans and Military Families, the first university-based institute in the聽U.S. focused on addressing the unique needs of veterans and their聽families.
