Research project: Intelligent Drone Navigation under Tree Canopy and Its Blockchain Aided Data Post-Processing (open for PhD application)

Drones operating under tree canopy are exposed to hazardous obstacle collision. Hence, a fixed autonomous waypoint is insufficient for reliable and safe navigation owing to unforeseen obstacles. For the sake of guaranteeing the reliable and safe autonomous navigation for surveillance under canopy, our project is to aim for designing machine learning assisted intelligent drone to provide sophisticated active collision avoidance with the aid of visual camera, LiDAR, radar and ultrasonic sensor. Furthermore, to resolve serious WiFi communication coverage issue, dual-use of both WiFi and LoRa systems will be investigated in our drone design. The use of blockchain will also be considered for reinforcing security of communication between drone and LoRa sensor node. Finally, machine learning and blockchain aided data post-processing will be implemented to realise intelligent precision agriculture architecture in palm oil tree farm.