Conceptualization and Evaluation of Unmanned Amphibious Aerial Vehicle for Water Quality Assessment

Abstract

n the rapid industrial growth, release of waste water to rivers newlineand other water reservoirs causes serious harmful effects to human newlinehealth. It is essential to perform water quality inspection in regular newlineintervals at the water reservoirs such as dams, lakes, rivers and ponds. newlineCollection of water samples in remote water bodies is challenging and newlinetime consuming. Traditional method of collecting water samples using newlineboats is cumbersome and it is very difficult to access remote water newlinelocations. While assessing the water, lot of issues are encountered by the newlineinspection team like inadequate skilled personnel, lack of boats, transfer newlineof germs, chance of drowning, temporal effects, etc. In order to resolve newlinethese issues, it is urged to develop a compact tool for water quality newlineassessment across remote water bodies. This brings the need of newlineamphibious vehicle in role. newlineThe incitement of this research is to interpret the conceptual newlinedesign process of Unmanned Amphibious Aerial Vehicle (UAAV) in a newlinesystematic approach. UAAV is conceptualized to be an ideal tool for newlinev newlinelimnologist in water quality assessment as there are chances of many newlinerisks and uncertainties in employing human directly to accomplish the newlinemission. The vehicle is designed in such a way that, the integration of newlinehovercraft with multi-rotor system is useful in collection of water newlinesamples from remote and inaccessible water bodies which could also newlinemakes the entire operation easier and less time consuming. The UAAV newlineflies in multi-rotor mode, subsequently land and glide along the water newlinesurface in hovercraft mode. newlineThe contemporary and unconventional configurations of newlinevehicle make the conceptual stage as challenging one in the design newlineprocess. In order to overcome the challenges and strapped configurations newlineof vehicle design, the systematic approach of scenario-based design, newlinemorphological matrix and Pugh s method in the design process of Pahl newlineand Beitz model are involved to retrieve the best possible UAAV design. newlineThe conglomerate design of UAAV is evaluated for its design newlinerequir