Max Richmond Sibayan was born and raised on the island of
Oahu. He is currently pursuing a B.S in Mechanical Engineering
at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. With his degree he hopes
to get into a career that is design focused. In his free time he
enjoys playing soccer, hiking, and listening to music.
Home Island: Oahu
High School:
Institution when accepted: UH Manoa
Site: USDA ARS Pacific Basin Agricultural Research Center. Hilo, Hawaii Island
Mentors: Peishih Liang & Jason Dzurisin
Project title: Integration of Harmonic Radar to an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for Organism Tracking
Project Abstract:
Tracking live organisms has long been used to study animal behavior and ecology, but tracking small
insects remains challenging because of their size and the limitations of conventional tracking
technologies. At the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), 300 ?m passive transponder
tags have been attached to fruit flies for tracking purposes. When a hand-held harmonic radar (HR)
transceiver sends out a radio-frequency signal, the passive transponder tags reflect a harmonic
frequency to the transceiver. The reflected signal then enables the operator to determine the
direction and distance of these tiny tags based on signal strength. Although harmonic radar
technology has enabled researchers to track insects, like fruit flies, existing handheld systems
require manual operation, limiting the quantity and resolution of ecological data that can be
collected. This project integrates an HR system onto an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to reduce
manual labor and provide real-time insect tracking. This project requires mechanical design,
software optimization, and experimental testing for a successful integrated system. To house the HR
transceiver, onboard processing unit, and associated electronics, as well as to provide sufficient
shielding from the UAV signals, 3D-printed mounting components are designed and fabricated.
Embedded software code is refined to optimize data acquisition, enabling efficient processing and
recording of both HR transceiver and UAV telemetry
during flight. Lastly, field experiments are conducted to
validate the integrated system and the accuracy of the
data acquisition and processing software.