University of Southampton's Autonomous Systems USRG hosts first ARGUS meeting
The Aerial Robotics Group for Universities and Scientists (ARGUS), aims to bring together the engineering and science research communities in an effort to encourage the transfer of knowledge; sharing of experiences and equipment; and to act as a lobbying group for accessing funding and arranging flying permissions.
Test flight
Controlled with mobile UAV control facility in one of our two specialised vans
Watchkeeper
The MOD's surveillance platform, going through its paces
ARGUS's first meeting
This was the first meeting of ARGUS and its Chair, Professor Jim Scanlan, was accompanied by Professors Steve Prior and Julian Leyland, fellow members of the Autonomous Systems University Strategic Research Group (USRG) and by PhD students from the University. The gathering took place at the West Wales UAV centre at Parc Aberporth and was timed to coincide with the NERC funded advanced training short course on ‘Practical use of mini- and micro-Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for the Environmental Sciences’, running over the course of the week which was led by Dr Rick Thomas from the University of Birmingham.
Flight demonstrations
As well as researchers from Southampton, representatives from Loughborough, Bristol and Manchester Universities attended the meeting. Discussions ranged from what the remit of ARGUS should be to the involvement of RCUK and other bodies and the development of a dedicated website. Following this, doctoral students, Mehmet Ali Erbil, Mantas Brazinskas and Mario Ferraro, from the University of Southampton, demonstrated the University's EPSRC funded mobile UAV control facility, one of two specially fitted vans, through a test flight of Steve Prior’s tethered surveillance UAV to an audience of attendees of the NERC funded workshop. As an added bonus, participants also got to see the MODs surveillance platform, Watchkeeper, put through its paces as part of the testing that has been taking place at Parc Aberporth.
Joining ARGUS
Membership of the group is open to all researchers engaged with development of platforms and sensors or who use these to collect scientific data. The next meeting of ARGUS will be held on 26th November at University of Southampton. If you are interested in joining the group and attending, please contact Jim Scanlan