Game of Drones: Exploring Self-Guided Parachute Navigation in Drone Package Delivery

Abstract

Drone-based item delivery has thus far in its short but innovative history revolved around a multi-rotor, miniature aircraft, performing a full landing to deliver packages. This system carries a range of technical and structural problems, including relatively poor flight dynamics, high battery power consumption, and range limitations. This thesis explores the deployment of electronically guided Smart Parachutes for drone-based package delivery, allowing the drone to perform a ‘fly-by’ during which it ejects the target’s package instead of the delivery requiring a full landing. Successfully designing and building a Smart Parachute delivery system repairs a wide range of social ills by adding yet more efficiency to the drone delivery network. Modern society suffers severe automotive congestion, pollution, theft, and latency between customer order and customer product receipt. A scaled drone delivery system mitigates the vast majority of these ills. As such, the project is worth pursuing.

The thesis specifically will explore a number of electromechanical solutions, highly reliant on granular, software-driven, location-sensing (via camera feed), as well as optimizing GPS coordination. These measurements will then feed into a rapid system state update algorithm to plan an optimal path for the Smart Parachute. Lastly, the system state algorithm will control a servo motor to steer the rigging of the parachute and update the feedback loop.