sUAS for deployment and recovery of an environmental sensor probe

Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) are already revolutionizing agricultural and environmental monitoring through the acquisition of high-resolution multi-spectral imagery on-demand. However, in order to accurately understand various complex environmental and agricultural processes, it is often necessary to collect physical samples of pests, pathogens, and insects from the field for ex-situ analysis. In this paper, we describe a sUAS for autonomous deployment and recovery of a novel environmental sensor probe. We present the UAS software and hardware stack, and a probe design that can be adapted to collect a variety of environmental samples and can be transported autonomously for off-site analysis. Our team participated in an NSF-sponsored student unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) challenge, where we used our sUAS to deploy and recover a scale-model mosquito trap outdoors. Results from indoor and field trials are presented, and the challenges experienced in detecting and docking with the probe in outdoor conditions are discussed.