Hey all!

I am Ayush, a core team member of my school's Robotics Club (Center For Innovation, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras). There is one project - The Triphibian - we are working on which I thought might be useful in the surveillance domain, especially for forests and mountains, terrain inhospitable to humans. I am not sure how helpful it would be and what more we could add to make it useful. Hence this discussion thread.

What is the Triphibian?

The Triphibian would be a semi-autonomous vehicle designed to fly like a drone, sail like a boat with wheels and move on land like a rover. See the attached attached for a rough idea (Note that the design is aerodynamically ineffective and we are working on it, the concept remains the same). It would send camera, temperature, location, altitude and humidity data to the operating computer/user. We aim to make it go autonomously from one given coordinate to another with a remote-control override. Have a look at this presentation for more information.

How can we make it more suited for conservation surveillance?

This is where I need help. Will it be helpful to maybe biologists or park rangers for monitoring? If yes, what can we do to make it better? Say, get more data or any design ideas? One idea, for starters, it can communicate with other stationary devices deployed throughout the park. 

Looking forward to your ideas and constructive criticism. 

Regards, 

Ayush