Every time you fly a drone, it is processing lots of information, such as its location, the time, and how fast it's going. This data can be very useful to a drone pilot. Maybe they want to know how fast their drone was flying or for how long it flew. Maybe a building owner wants to know which drones have been flying above their building. Our project allows users to answer these questions.
In addition, new drone regulations were published by the FAA last year, which require that all drones, whether public or private, have a broadcast module. This broadcast module needs to communicate telemetry data, including the date, the drone's location, altitude, and velocity. An additional goal of the project was to meet these new regulations and provide a unique, helpful way to record this data in the long term.
There are two main parts of the project. The first is data capture. The software on the drone captures telemetry data while the drone is in flight. This includes latitude and longitude, altitude, velocity, and time. This data is recorded in 15-second increments throughout the flight and stored on a connected device.
The second part is the storage of the data in a blockchain platform. This platform, created using Hyperledger Sawtooth, stores data from the drones that is accessible via the frontend webpage or drone. Each block of data from the drone is stored in the blockchain platform and persists even after the platform is restarted. Through the frontend webpage, drone data can be added, updated, or deleted.
This project provides multiple benefits to the drone pilot. First, it provides a way for the pilot or another user to see flight information. This can show which drones have been in a specific area, how long they flew for, and how fast they flew. Second, it helps the pilot to capture data to meet the FAA regulations.
