Unmanned aerial vehicles are being put to peacetime use in the fight to protect the environment
Unmanned aerial vehicles are being put to peacetime use in the fight to protect the environment
Here come the drones: Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are advancing quickly and being applied as clean technology for peaceful purposes.
The civilian use of drones can include everything from police searches for missing people, to real estate agents filming houses for sale, to oil and gas companies checking on remote sections of pipelines. One of the most promising applications of drone technology is in environmental protection and management.
Two environmental scientists have set up their own not-for-profit group, the Conservation Drone Project, to develop low-cost drones. While commercial drones cost millions of dollars, they built a prototype for less than $2,000, field-testing it last year by having it collect aerial photographs and video of tropical rainforests in Indonesia.
The project's site includes instructions, such as how to install and use a sensor on a homemade drone. Now manufacturers in North America, China, Israel and elsewhere are working on lower-cost designs, and different models are set to hit the market in years ahead.
Conservation drones can fly on their own for an hour, covering 25 kilometres to produce high-resolution images that can be put together for mapping. These maps can show land use, illegal deforestation and changes in animal habitats.
Peaceful drone surveillance can also be combined with big data; a project called Local Ecological Footprint Tool (LEFT) leverages globally available web-based databases and models to provide an ecological score for industries looking for where to best set up facilities.
The score is based on five key ecological features (biodiversity, fragmentation, threat, connectivity and resilience) and can be applied to any region in the world delivering pictures to 300 megapixels. (Your phone camera is typically between 5 and 8.5 megapixels.)
Conservation drones are also being used in Australia to monitor marine mammals. As with other clean technology, the hope is that early high prices will come down quickly, making drones available to smaller buyers
While UAVs were originally developed for the battlefield, they are finding more and more civilian applications. Others uses include:
- Law enforcement: Thanks to their ability to monitor large areas at low cost, drones can be a major asset to law enforcement agencies. For example, rangers in African and Indian national parks use UAVs to track poachers.
- Firefighting: Drones can help identify hotspots in large wildfires and explore otherwise inaccessible areas. Researchers at Queensland University of Technology in Australia are developing prototypes of such specialized UAVs.
- Search and rescue: Using multiple UAVs in combination with a search algorithm improves search and rescue operations. Several search and rescue organizations in Alaska are looking into using drones that have proven capable of flying at temperatures of -20 degrees F.
- Agriculture: Chemical use on food crops can be reduced by pinpointing weeds via cameras mounted on low-flying drones. Such applications are becoming popular in Australia and Canada.
The spread of civilian uses of UAVs will require regulation if concerns over privacy issues are to be addressed. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is working on new rules that will allow drones to operate in U.S. airspace by 2015.
Despite the concerns, Scientific American has already listed conservation drones as one of the 10 world-changing inventions that can improve our lives.
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