BAYFIELD – Through his passion for aerospace engineering technology, Jack Davis sought to not only help speed up Upper Pine River Fire Protection District’s response times to vehicle crashes, but also help relay pertinent information to the department sooner.
For his capstone project, the Bayfield High School engineering student is building an autonomous drone that would use an infrared camera for nighttime car wrecks, can travel 45 mph – whereas UPRFPD’s two active quadcopter-like drones can travel 31 mph – and can view crash site information covering a 4- to 7-kilometer range.
“If there’s a crash and they get a call, they’d send this thing up to get ahead of actual responding vehicles, then monitor it and say, ‘Hey, we have one injured, we have three cars involved,’” Davis said. “We’d actually report that back to the fire district to respond to the scene accordingly.”
Davis, who is hoping to study aerospace engineering at either Colorado School of Mines or Texas Tech University, said a main factor that inspired him to build a drone is that he noticed a number of car wrecks appear to happen around County Road 501 in Bayfield because of some of the turns, especially at night.
“When you’re going 60 mph, they can get a little bit sketchy,” he said.
He's on track to complete his drone and make it fully functional by May.
Davis said the information coming from that wider range would be more accurate so fire crews can better determine how many and what kind of vehicles need to be dispatched.
“It would speed up times, responding times,” he said. “If they wanted to, they can step away from the actual computer and let the (drone) fly while somebody’s monitoring it. It’ll fly itself.”
Davis contacted Upper Pine Fire back in late August, gave the rundown of how his drone can help the department, and things developed quickly from there.
The battery life on Davis’s drone lasts up to two hours before it needs to be replaced. The battery life for each of Upper Pine Fire’s two drones last about 30 minutes and cover about 1 square mile before it needs to be replaced.
Mason Dyar, who oversees Upper Pine Fire’s drone program, said Davis’ drone would help the initial “size-up” analyzing a crash site, adding fire crews can respond sooner to a smoke call on a remote ridge as information is relayed in real time.
“I think (Davis’ drone would) be more ideal for covering a larger area,” he said, adding that drones can have a longer flight time from a base to the scene. “It’s kind of like an overwatch. It can be up in the air for a good amount circling and observing. It’d certainly be useful technology.”
Dyar said Davis’ drone could also keep an eye on a fire the department’s working to contain and watch for ember casts and spot fires when prolonged airtime may be limited.
Davis’ project doesn’t end with the drone itself. He is also implementing a first-person view software where fire crews can view the scene through a pair of special goggles, and the flight controller would run through a computer app that can also be used via cellphone.
That video feed would come in through the antenna that accompanies the camera.
“It’d just transmit it wirelessly,” Davis said.
Dyar said responders would need some kind of cellular or Wi-Fi signal to view a local broadcast of that video feed that would be transmitted through the app.
Dyar said the increased speed on Davis’ drone compared to Upper Pine Fire’s two active drones can save responders 20 to 30 minutes driving through various back roads while en route to a wildland fire.
“That’s a lot of time for a wildland fire to be burning,” he said.
Dyar said the right kind of technology means crew members don’t necessarily have to respond with an apparatus.
“Just the use of technology, it’s an area where we certainly don’t have a drone like that. I don’t know a lot of fixed-wings that departments like us are using. It really could be a whole new genre of tools that isn’t being utilized right now,” Dyar said. “He’s really dialed in, and it’s just really cool.”
Dyar said the terrain is such where the department drones’ communication ability eventually gets degraded, and connection is lost. That’s where the range of Davis’ drone would come in handy.
“I just love things that move,” Davis said.
Davis, who looks to work with military drones in conflict zones for a career, said his project taught him building a drone can be done easily, but that there’s also room to keep improving.
He said the project taught him about various pieces and components that he could potentially work with and getting them to fit together, such as where a battery would be placed and how it would impact center of gravity.
mhollinshead@durangoherald.com
