NAROM Mikro UAS

Abstract

This report presents the development of the NAROM UAS, an Unmanned Aircraft System for educational use by the Norwegian Centre of Space Related Education (NAROM). The NAROM UAS is a small, inexpensive and modular platform intended for technological courses. This UAS enables students to plan and carry out UAS operations while also flying their own experimental payloads.A Skywalker EPO airframe was successfully selected as the platform for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), providing a flight endurance of about one hour and a tested payload capacity of unit{550}{gram}. The NAROM UAV also holds an ArduPilot Mega autopilot (APM). The APM proved reliable and sturdy once correctly set up. A meteorological payload was also developed for the NAROM UAV, based on a CanSat kit. This payload includes pressure, temperature, and humidity sensors in combination with a GPS receiver. Spatial weather data was transmitted to a Ground Control Station (GCS) and recorded in real-time. Consistent weather pattern data was collected in flight although the full potential of this platform could only be fully demonstrated by a scientific weather mapping study; however, this proved to be outside the scope of this master thesis.