Pilot drone project to map fast-growing Milton Keynes
A pilot drone project to map the fast-growing Milton Keynes area is set to be put in place by the council.
According to a report by the MKCitizen, the project has already mapped MK’s crematorium and new development Fairfields and Whitehouse.
It reported on how council officers dealing with planning, landscaping, street naming and numbering, and emergency planning, have already given the thumbs up.
A report in advance of a meeting today outlines: “There is always a risk of complaint from the public about privacy and safety,” says a report in advance of a meeting tomorrow.”
Adding: “In the eventuality of this happening, we are confident in our ability to evidence the safe flying of the UAV. All flights will be subject to a rigorous risk assessment prior to approval.”
The report, sponsored by Sarah Gonsalves, the council’s director of policy, insight and communications, says 29,000 new homes are planned in the city up to 2031.
It went on: “With rapid growth taking place, it is inevitable that base mapping fails to keep pace with development on the ground.”
A delegated decision due to be made by Cllr Rob Middleton, the council’s elected head of resources and innovation, also includes the use of drones at isolated emergency incidents and when the council requires creative material for specific projects.
The report continues: “It is the intention to build a portfolio of images to plug the gap in our current aerial records and gather geospatial data in order to provide much needed intelligence for how development areas are emerging. Information gathered will help to inform service delivery, especially in growth areas on the east and west flanks of the city and emerging south east.”
Tree Planting Drone can plant 100,00 Trees in one day
There is no doubt that technology is the biggest contributor to climate change but it also can act as a survivor when used in a pro-environmental manner.
Yes, you read it right! British Engineers have created a tree-planting drone that can plant 100,000 trees in one day.
Biocarbon Engineering, a start-up based in Oxford, has been using these flying machines to plant trees and grasses at abandoned mines in Australia and on sites in other parts of the world.
Irina Fedorenko, the cofounder of Biocarbon Engineering, said: We now have a case confirmed of what species we can plant and in what conditions. We are now ready to scale up our planting and replicate this success.
Biocarbon is working with Worldview International Foundation, an NGO to replant mangrove saplings in Myanmar.
Till now, the organization has planted an area of 750 hectares, about twice the size of Central Park.
How the Tree-planting Drone Works
Drones operate by operators, fly more than 300 feet over the land and collect all the data such as soil quality and topography.
Now, with the help of an algorithm, the best locations to plant trees are chosen. The very next moment, another group of drones follows the algorithm created map and plant the seed accordingly.
Irina Fedorenko, co-founder of BioCarbon Engineering said: “We can modify what to plant, and where, so you have the highest chance of survival. If you do aerial spreading–you just spread seeds wherever–maybe they hit a rock, maybe they hit a swamp, and they’re not going to survive. But we can basically control for that.”
In 2008, when a hurricane hit Burma, around 138,000 people were killed. Deforestation added to this loss or overall damage.
Bremley Lyngdoh, a board member at Worldview International said and Norvergence quotes: “We are now racing against time to rebuild the green shield in order to protect the most vulnerable people living in the coastal zones before another massive storm hits them again.”
The foundation will also provide an incentive for people to take care of trees. Fedorenko added: “The foundation wants to guarantee that after the ecosystems are restored, people have the incentive to actually keep it and care about it.
It’s all about creating livelihoods. We have to create jobs that are long-term that can sustain the family, then they see the benefit of the project, and they get engaged in the long term.”
Also, without human effort, the whole process seems impossible as workers prepare seed pods for the drones.
Lyngdoh explained this: “Drones can’t plant trees without people on the ground trained to collect seeds and convert them into seed pods. Pods are then loaded by hand and fired from the drones.
The process will take time as it has never before been tested in mangrove swamp soils–so we need to train local people in all our partnering villages and build their capacity first before the drones are deployed on the ground. There is also government regulations and clearance that needs to be done, and this process takes time, as it has never been implemented before in Myanmar.
We also train local people to be drone pilots, Fedorenko added. “And they want that. They want to be in IT. They want to process data, they want to fly drones, they want to do agroforestry, they want to do regenerative agriculture, they want to create vertical farms . . . they want to do all this cool stuff. It’s not the ambition to be a seedling planter for $1 a day.”
Planting 1 Billion Trees
This project will definitely expand in an order to achieve the goal of planting 1 billion trees. Frdorenko says about it: “If [it can be] financially sustainable…that will be huge for pretty much all the tropical areas around the world. Every country that has mangroves will be able to replicate the example, all around the equator.”
“We need to restore [forests to cover] basically the size of India by 2030. It’s mind-blowing. At the current speed, it’s impossible. That’s why we’re innovating. That’s what motivated us in the first place.”
Norvergence LLC Explains the Origin and Rise of BioCarbon Engineering
NASA veteran Dr. Lauren Fletcher who is also the founder of BioCarbon Engineering said that he very well understood the reasons why forests were coming down so fast. But the question that puzzled him was, “why it’s very hard for people to plant trees?”
He answered his question: “I realized very quickly that it’s because the state of the art [method] at the time was really hand planters, people with a bag of saplings on their shoulder going out, day after day, and bending over every 15 to 20 seconds and planting a tree, and it’s really hard grueling work.”
When asked about the origin of tree-planting drone idea and his partnership with Fedorenko, he said,
I saw firing saplings from drones is a potential solution to the problem of reforestation. I and Fedorenko spent almost six months pitching early iterations of an idea at various competitions and accelerators.
In 2015, their idea/concept was selected as a finalist for Drones for Good in a competition organized by the Emirate of Dubai.
The interesting part is, at that time they don’t have any drones.
After getting some funding from the Skoll Foundation and organizing committee, they made their first prototype.
In Paris, the prototype won the €100,000 top prize at the Hello Tomorrow conference. After that, they hired South African business school student Matthew Ritchie, an accountant who is now the company’s CFO and Susan Graham, an Australian biomedical engineer.
In 2017, they got their first break and restored a decommissioned open-cut mine in Australia. While concluding, Fedorenko said: “We want to make the barrier to entry much lower [for companies]. Imagine you are Audi and you sit in Germany, and you think: Oh, let’s plant some mangroves in Myanmar. How do you even start? What do you do? Whom do you call? And here we come.”
Drones grounded following a crash near a child’s play area have been given the go-ahead to take off again.
The incident, in May, was the second in a year and prompted an independent safety investigation.
Swiss Post and start-up dronemaker Matternet had been working together to carry lab samples between hospitals.
The first incident, in January last year, saw a drone make an emergency landing on Lake Zurich, following a GPS hardware error.
In the second, more serious, incident, the drone’s parachute malfunctioned and it crashed yards away from an area where young children were playing. There were no injuries.
At the time, Swiss Post asked Matternet to make several changes:
reinforce parachute ropes with metal braiding
have two ropes instead of one
make a whistle alerting people to its presence louder
All of these had been implemented, the company told BBC News.
“We certify that Swiss Post and Matternet maintain high safety standards and a high level of safety awareness. There are no reasons why flight operations should not be resumed,” said Prof Michel Guillaume, head of the Centre for Aviation, at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) and a member of the expert board.
In response, Matternet said: “We’re excited to resume and expand our operations in Switzerland in close partnership with Swiss Post and the Swiss Federal Office of Civil Aviation. Switzerland is known for its high standards of safety and high quality transportation services.”
Could Drones Save Cows? Why a Uni of Kentucky Research Team Thinks So
In the basement of an engineering building on UK’s campus, there’s a calf replica who goes by the name of Chuck. Chuck has been instrumental in perfecting the machine-learning and UAV-formation-control technology. Photo by: Eric Sanders.
LEXINGTON, Ky. (Jan. 27, 2020)— It’s a staggering statistic — every year nearly 3 million cows in the U.S. die from health problems. And it’s costing the cattle industry more than $1 billion.
Combating this economic loss starts at the producer level. Ultimately, improved observation of cows in the pasture is proven to reduce herd loss. Sounds simple enough — right? But beef cattle spend a significant amount of time outside, which makes constant monitoring problematic.
Could eyes in the sky be the answer?
Jesse Hoagg, the Donald and Gertrude Lester Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kentucky, thinks so. With the help of a $900,000 grant from the United States Department of Agriculture, he is diligently working on a noninvasive health monitoring approach using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) — otherwise known as drones.
The drones would provide farmers with a way to remotely and autonomously check on the location and health of each cow — allowing them to address cattle health and safety issues much sooner.
“This project tackles an important problem — reducing cattle loss,” Hoagg said. “And the approach that we are developing is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on expertise in robotics, computer science, control systems, agricultural engineering and livestock systems.”
Josh Jackson, an assistant extension professor in the College of Agriculture, Food and Environment and a cattle producer, said the motivation for the project came while he was trying to find his Angus herd in the dark.
“Many Kentucky cattle producers have jobs off the farm, and it gets tricky to locate cows this time of the year — when the sun sets so early,” he explained. “We want to lessen producers’ stress by helping them locate their animals quicker and help sick animals faster.”
The new system aims to identify each cow in a pasture through unique characteristics such as facial features and measure vital health information like size and physical activity.
You’re probably wondering, how exactly would this technology work? In an effort to answer that very question, Hoagg and his team of professor and student researchers have been conducting experiments.
In the basement of an engineering building on UK’s campus, there’s a calf replica who goes by the name of Chuck. Chuck has been instrumental in perfecting the machine-learning and UAV-formation-control technology.
As Hoagg explained, “Our indoor UAV flight facility allows us to develop and test formation control approaches in a controlled environment. This is an important first step before outdoor testing.”
Here’s how the system works. An observer drone hovers 50 to 100 feet above the herd. Using stereo cameras, this drone tracks motion to determine the location of the cattle. Meanwhile, three worker drones use that location information to track a specific cow. The worker drones then perform the health monitoring tasks.
A software program the team has custom-built tells the drones when to execute maneuvers, such as maintaining formations around a cow and tracking the cow.
Zack Lippay, the doctoral student leading these test flights, has dedicated more than two years to the project. “We’re trying to prove that this method is safe,” he explained. “Everything is completely autonomous, but we have a fail-safe where pilots can take over if things get unstable.”
As previously mentioned, machine learning technology plays a crucial role — especially when teaching the drones how to identify one cow from another and estimate physical characteristics. Essentially, the team is training the software to recognize each cow’s face so that physical measurements of an individual cow can be tracked over time. To do this, 3D models will be constructed using real images of cows.
Michael Sama, associate professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering, and Ruigang Yang, professor of computer science, are leading this component of the project. “Part of this effort is to simply collect the massive amount of imagery necessary to develop custom machine learning technology suitable for individual cow identification,” Sama explained. “We’re trying to understand the best way to acquire images remotely, how to efficiently extract information from those images that provides value to cattle producers.”
Lastly, the team also needs to ensure there won’t be any adverse effects caused by drones hovering near the cattle. Trials are already underway, at the C. Oran Little Research Center in Versailles, Kentucky, to test how cows react to the drones. Gabriel Abdulai, a doctoral student in biosystems and agricultural engineering is focusing his studies on cattle response to drones. Three days a week, the team performs test flights. So far, the heart rates among the herds circled by drones remain stable and the cattle have shown no other signs of stress.
“By studying the physiological and behavioral response of beef cattle to drones, we want to ensure that this great technology is not a stressor,” Abdulai said. “This
is because stressed cattle often spend less time grazing and are difficult to handle, which can impact daily weight gain and handling operations”
Though the project is far from being completed, early results are promising. The hope is, someday the technology being developed could be commercialized and used to improve the productivity of small-herd cattle producers.
“This project aims to make transformational progress on the use of autonomous UAVs for monitoring cattle health and thus improve the security of a critical food resource and improve the economic outlook for rural beef producers,” Hoagg said.
The project is slated to continue through February 2021.
How New Technologies Are Helping to Preserve the Environment
Wetlands are essential ecosystems which provide numerous benefits to society as a whole. But their functionality strongly depends on the hydrology and topography of the watershed, thus creating the need for monitoring. The use of terrestrial topographical survey methods can be a challenging task in wetlands, however. Flooded areas, muddy terrain and low vegetation can substantially slow down or even prevent the movement of surveyors, while tall vegetation can obstruct GPS reception. As this article outlines, advanced technologies such as airborne or UAS Lidar offer interesting alternatives for surveying the hydrology and topography of wetlands.
Wetlands are ecosystems where water meets land, such as river marshes, peatlands or flooded forests. They are often undervalued and have become globally threatened; since 1900, two thirds of natural wetlands have been destroyed. Besides conserving the remaining wetlands, there is a need to help wetlands recover from degradation or fragmentation which can cause the loss of their essential ecological functions and consequently the loss of all the benefits they provide to society as a whole. In many cases, wetland problems have originated from the alteration of the channel path or other physical characteristics, which in turn has led to habitat degradation and loss of biodiversity. Therefore, the understanding of the physical terrain structure and natural hydrology is essential for successful wetlands restoration.
Figure 1: Image of the Mou de Pleure bog.
Case study: Mou de Pleure bog
The Mou de Pleure bog, located in the Franche Comté region of France, is a prime example of wetlands degradation. Since the end of the 19th century, the bog has suffered wide-ranging damage. One of the most important interventions was the digging of a ditch in the 1980s to improve drainage of cultivated land. This hydrological alteration led to various negative impacts such as a decrease in water storage capacity (which normally supports flood prevention), forestation and loss of previously observed rare local species. The Mou de Pleure is one of the region’s few peatlands that is located on the plains and, according to ancient studies, it used to be the widest and the most flourishing of all the swamps on the Bresse plain. The Regional Conservatory for Natural Areas (CEN) therefore initiated a restoration project.
The use of UAS Lidar
To study the hydromorphology of the area for the restoration project, an accurate digital terrain model (DTM) was required of the bog and its watershed. A French aerial mapping operator called L’Avion Jaune, based in Montpellier, decided to use a Lidar scanner on a multirotor platform to conduct the survey.
The study area covered around 50 hectares with, in the centre of the bog, a dense wooded area along the Mou stream measuring 900m long by 200m wide. Beyond the forested area, the rest of the Mou de Pleure bog comprises meadows and cultures. The use of an unmanned aerial system (UAS), especially a multirotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAS or ‘drone’), is typically well-suited for an area of this size, which is too extensive to be surveyed cost-effectively using terrestrial techniques but too small to perform an aerial survey using a manned aircraft. Besides that, the muddy environment and the dense vegetation make it difficult for terrestrial surveyors to access the terrain.
Figure 2: The YellowScan Surveyor system.
Another challenge in this survey is the high vegetation cover, as the degradation of the bog has led to dense forestation of the riverside land. The use of Lidar technology rather than photogrammetry, for example, is especially relevant in this case as the emitted laser pulse can penetrate in between the canopy and provide measurement points on the ground.
The L’Avion Jaune team chose to work with the YellowScan Surveyor Lidar UAV: an ultra-lightweight standalone self-powered mapping system which is easily integrated with multiple platform types. With a weight of 1.6kg, it is one of the lightest fully integrated laser scanning systems in the world. The Surveyor includes an onboard computer which controls the three main components: a Velodyne laser scanner, and a GNSS and inertial navigation system (INS) both from Applanix (APX15). The laser scanner has a 300kHz frequency, making it optimal for mapping through the vegetation cover, plus the 5cm accuracy of the GNSS-inertial solution fulfilled the study requirements.
Simple workflow
The main advantage of this UAV-Lidar combination is that it is quick and easy to operate (Figure 3). The fieldwork was completed in one day, including six flights, quality check of the data and picking up of control points. Flights were performed with 5m/s velocity at a height of 50m, with a 60% Lidar flight line overlap. Four transversal flight lines were added along the wooded area to maximize the point density of the bog.
Back at the office, the L’Avion Jaune team applied a post-processed kinematic (PPK) correction technique to the trajectory using POSPac by Applanix and used the YellowScan QGIS plugin to generate a georeferenced point cloud with the corrected trajectory. Then, several Lidar point cloud processes were achieved using TerraSolid software to generate the deliverables, including noise filtering, flight line matching and ground classification. Lastly, the point cloud was filtered to keep the ground points only and a DTM was extracted.
The Lidar point cloud generated from the QGIS plugin was already quite good; the average 3D mismatch was less than 2cm. The flight line matching applied using TerraMatch further improved the point cloud geometry, with a final 3D mismatch of less than 1cm. Ground classification was achieved using successive classification routines in TerraScan. The trickiest step was to discriminate low vegetation from the ground without smoothing microtopography, which required extensive quality checks and a few manual corrections.
Figure 3: Lidar data processing workflow for wetlands restoration applications (adapted from YellowScan training workflow by P. Chaponnière).
Results
The resulting point cloud (Figure 4) had an average density of 118pts/m2 over the whole area, with point density reaching up to 280pts/m2 in some areas with crossed overlap. Flooded areas presented a lower point density because infrared light (wavelength: 905nm) does not penetrate water. However, the average point density over the bog was satisfactory (70 pts/m2).
The average density of ground points was 96pts/m2 over the whole study area, and ranged from 5 to 25pts/m2 under vegetation cover. In some specific cases, the low vegetation consisting of brambles was so dense that the Lidar beam could not reach the ground, so some blank areas remain in the dataset, although fortunately only to a limited extent.
The hydrological features were easily identifiable on the resulting DTM (Figure 5). UAV photogrammetry could have produced a high-quality DSM, but would not have provided a good-quality DTM beneath the vegetation cover. To analyse the hydrology, further processing was performed by a consulting company specialized in the environment. The DTM was used to extract contours lines and to map the rivers and the streams using a watershed algorithm by QGIS. A vertical cross-section of the point cloud helped identify the key hydrological elements even beneath vegetation. The DTM was used to build a hydraulic model and to simulate flow. Ultimately, three scenarios were proposed for the restoration of the Mou de Pleure bog.
Figure 4: Point cloud of the Mou de Pleure bog generated using the YellowScan Surveyor mapping system.
Broader perspective
Wetlands occur in almost every country and every climate, and environmental studies and restoration actions are being undertaken worldwide. UAS Lidar appears to be an effective tool to characterize hydrology and could be used in various types of wetlands across the globe. The point density may be limited in some wetlands with wet or flooded areas because the infrared wavelength hardly penetrates into water. To maximize point density, it can be useful to adapt the flight planning by increasing overlap and/or reducing flight height or speed. Topo-bathymetric Lidar data may also help to overcome this issue, although airborne bathymetric scanners are expensive and heavy items of equipment to survey small areas and the UAV bathymetric scanner offering is limited. The light penetration into dense vegetation such as brambles might be improved using a high-density Lidar system with a laser frequency of 600kHz.
This survey was completed with a multirotor UAV which is well-suited for small areas. However, more extensive areas could be more cost-efficiently surveyed using a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) UAV. Not only is such a solution suitable for larger areas in terms of flight duration/coverage (90 minutes/700 hectares), but the vertical take-off is a real asset when flying from difficult-to-access areas.
Figure 5: Extracts from the DSM and DTM of Mou de Pleure. The Lidar technology allowed computation of a high-quality DTM including beneath the vegetation cover to reveal the hydrological features.
New UAV integrated systems and software from Microdrones
With the launch of three new integrated systems, ARPAS-UK Member Microdrones has now completed the range of what its popular 3000 series of integrated drone systems can offer.
The mdMapper3000DuoG VHR represents the biggest advancement of the three launches, giving users the opportunity to gather ultra-high-resolution photogrammetry from higher altitudes using the Phase One camera and direct georeferencing. Users also have the option to add the mdLiDAR payload to the md4-3000 airframe with an integrated Riegl miniVUX-1DL. The payloads are easy to swap and give users more possibilities.
With the integrated 100-megapixel Phase One iXM-100 camera, the system can achieve one-pixel mapping accuracy from 1,000 feet, Microdrones President Vivien Heriard-Dubreuil said, making the new offering a “game changer” in the drone industry. The Phase One camera is paired with a custom, lightweight, vibration-free, quick connect mount.
“We wanted to leverage the performance of the platform to really bring something new and better,” Heriard-Dubreuil said.
“Most of the photogrammetry systems on the market are designed to fly at 500, maybe 400 feet. We wanted to create something efficient, accurate and precise, and we saw the opportunity with the 3000. That’s how the VHR was born.”
The company also announced two other launches: the new software ecosystem mdInfinity and mdTector1000CH4 LR, which is integrated with a Pergam Laser Methane Falcon sensor for detecting Methane (CH4) and methane-containing gases.
“Most of the photogrammetry systems on the market are designed to fly at 500, maybe 400 feet. We wanted to create something efficient, accurate and precise, and we saw the opportunity with the 3000. That’s how the VHR was born.”Vivien Heriard-Debreuil, President, Microdrones
FLYING HIGHER
The mdMapper3000DuoG VHR allows users to maintain high mapping accuracy even if the system is far from the ground, opening up opportunities in many different industries where this is crucial, Heriard- Dubreuil said. Because of its payload and speed, the professionally developed system can be used in place of manned aircraft for some applications and still provide users with similar precision.
This system is a breakthrough for mining companies, Director of mdSolutions Mohamed Mostafa said, making it much more efficient to accurately map open pit mines, for example. It also can cover larger areas, enabling users to map in terms of square kilometers instead of square meters.
This expanded coverage is huge in countries where there aren’t as many limitations on drone flights, as in China, where the system might be used for city modeling, for example.
Large construction projects, pipeline monitoring in the oil and gas industry, and corridor mapping of long roadways are among other application possibilities, Mostafa said.
“The system includes the DuoG component, and that DuoG includes inertially fused GNSS with dual IMUs that enables corridor mapping. So, for infrastructure and transportation fields you could fly a corridor and cover up to six to eight or 10 square kilometers, which is a fairly long stretch of road, to be done in half an hour at the level of centimeter or half-inch resolution with a similar accuracy of a pixel level,” he said. “That is very unique to deliver in one flight and that flight could be 30 minutes up in the air.”
With this system, professional mappers will be able to complete jobs that once required expensive manned flights in half a day, he said. The system will give them full coverage of 4 to 6 square miles with “the highest resolution and accuracy in the world” of a pixel or so, at the level of 1,000 feet or more.
Regardless of the project, VHR offers data acquisition, data verification, quality control and assessment using multiple streams of data from imagery and inertially fused GNSS in one package.
The mdMapper3000DuoG VHR
The mdMapper3000DuoG and the mdMapper3000PPK
These systems also offer a variety of benefits for customers and can be easily upgraded to the VHR and LiDAR payloads, so there’s no need to invest in separate drones. The mdMapper3000DuoG offers direct georeferencing and a 42.4-megapixel Sony RX1R II camera on a nadir mount. It can quickly acquire highly dense and accurate data in half the time of PPK-based systems, and can easily be upgraded to VHR or LiDAR by purchasing the payload(s) and related firmware and software subscriptions.
The expandable mdMapper3000PPK can acquire dense and accurate data with one to three ground control points. This system also features a 42.4-megapixel Sony RX1R II camera and nadir mount. It is DuoG-ready and easily upgradeable via firmware to direct georeferencing. So, users can swap payloads if they want to add LiDAR or Phase One capabilities or upgrade the firmware to go from PPK to DuoG.
“The integration of payloads is really quick,” Heriard-Dubreuil said. “When you connect a 3000 LiDAR payload to the drone, it’s one connection for everything. You don’t have a couple of cables with different sizes. It’s easy and it works.”
MICRODRONES MDINFINITY SOFTWARE
The new cloud-based mdInfinity software simplifies the workflow, Heriard-Dubreuil said, making it easy for customers to process data online with just a few clicks. Users don’t need a POSPac software license to access the various processing tools, and everything can be found in one place.
Processing can be completed in three or four clicks online, giving users easy access to reliable data. The sophisticated POSPac software customers are familiar with powers the system in the background to help with drone data processing.
“It will become the backbone of everything we do,” he said. “You can have access to all the processing tools that really make the difference when you use an MD system.”
Users also can purchase data as they go. When the project calls for it, anybody using the mdMapper1000+, the company’s most basic drone, can process results at PPK or DG via a token-based system. This system is being tested now.
“That’s what the online platform allows us to do,” Heriard-Dubreuil said. “That’s the future of the mapper line.”
Available in early 2020, this software will become the backbone of the Microdrones product ecosystem. The first module introduced will be trajectory processing, followed by Pointcloud Georeferencing, Boresight Calibration and Pointcloud Colorization.
mdTector1000CH4 LR
With these integrated systems and software also comes the updated mdTector1000CH4LR, which is integrated with a Pergam Laser Methane Falcon sensor. The upgraded sensor offers a significant weight reduction. It draws on the drone power source and doesn’t have the display found on previous-generation detectors. Instead, information is displayed on the mdCockpit tablet software during flight, and via area concern maps postflight.
Microdrones made the upgrade based on user feedback, Heriard-Dubreuil said. Users wanted a sensor with more range and the ability to fly higher with better performance in mountainous areas, which is exactly what the sensor provides. This upgrade isn’t meant to replace the current sensor, which can be used by teams on the ground. The updated sensor offers range up to 100 meters.
These systems, the software ecosystem and the sensor upgrade provide new opportunities for Microdrones in a variety of verticals and applications, while giving customers access to even better data and easier post processing.
If you would like to learn more about these new systems and software, CLICK HERE to schedule an appointment with one of our friendly representatives.
The commercial drone industry has developed rapidly over the last five years: and governments, humanitarian organizations and enterprise companies all over the world are working to best utilize the technology to help communities and grow economies. One continent, however, has been at the forefront of innovative applications and the development of new testing methodologies and regulations: Africa.
When Rwanda signed the first government contract to allow widescale medical drone delivery, the move – and the program, which had the dual benefits of providing skilled jobs to the local community and providing life-saving medical delivery services – caused a ripple throughout the global drone industry. When UNICEF worked closely with the Malawi government to open a drone corridor for testing and delivery applications, that caused another ripple – and created a valuable model for other testing programs.
image courtesy African Drone Forum
These and other innovative programs on the continent have proven the importance and benefits of drone technology to governments and communities. The African Drone Forum that will be hosted by the Government of Rwanda on February 5-7, 2020 in Kigali is led by the World Bank and has garnered the support of partners that include the World Economic Forum, UKAID/DfID, Danida, the Republic of Korea, the World Food Programme, UNICEF, John Snow, Inc., Deloitte, AfricanDRONE, Tanzania Flying Labs and many other organizations. The program is designed to bring government stakeholders and drone technology providers together – and will showcase the kind of ideas that have led the rest of the world in implementing the best and most useful applications.
image courtesy African Drone Forum
“The World Bank is exploring the social and economic opportunities of drone technologies in Africa”, says Edward Anderson, Senior Technology and Resilience Specialist at the World Bank. “Important challenges to poverty alleviation in Africa are improving mobility and land digitization, and ensuring equitable opportunities from the fourth industrial revolution,” says Mr. Anderson. “…Extending mapping and deliveries to rural communities is a key part of enabling eCommerce on the continent and boosting productivity and economic opportunities.”
With a goal of supporting African governments to harness robotics, autonomy and digital technologies to speed technological development, the African Drone Forum is bringing regulators, users, local startups, investors, and new technology pioneers together. It’s a broad goal for an event – but the one that has proven most useful in actually getting standards formed around complex technologies and establishing the relationships that encourage business and government partnerships.
In addition to a regulators summit, the event features the Lake Kivu Challenge– a series of flying competitions that will showcase new drone technology.
image courtesy African Drone Forum
Two years in the making, the Lake Kivu Challenge invites drone companies “to help advance the safe implementation of beyond line of sight operations in the hard to reach communities of the Great Lakes region,” says Mr. Anderson. “The competitions are focused on electric drone technology with vertical landing or short landing capability… that are low cost and capable of high frequency flights.”
Companies who meet the minimum requirements will participate in one or more of 3 flying competitions – which may help identify contractors to provide delivery and mapping services around Lake Kivu, specifically around the Karongi District.
The 3 flying competitions address different applications and flight scenarios:
Emergency Delivery: Contestants must safely deliver an emergency package weighing a minimum of 1kg from the droneport on the mainland to Bugarura Island in Lake Kivu, and then return and land safely at the starting point.
Sample Pick-Up: Contestants must take off from the mainland droneport and safely pick up as many 250g modules as possible from the droneport on Bugarura Island on Lake Kivu and return them to the mainland droneport.
Find and Assess: Contestants must successfully provide a high-quality orthomosaic covering a 1.5 km² of an island or set of islands that are 20km from a droneport on the mainland in Lake Kivu, then return and land safely at the starting point.
Rwanda will host the African Drone Forum – and that’s appropriate. A pioneer in drone delivery, widespread drone operations, and the first country in the world to manage more autonomous air traffic in 2019 than manned air services, Rwanda is the perfect place for the African and global drone industry to celebrate their achievements and look to the future. “Rwanda is the right time and place to take stock and assess the future developments in Africa,” says Mr. Anderson. “The ADF aims to foster a pan-African community that is open for business and collaboration.”
Drones (also known as unmanned aircraft) are flying systems that do not carry a pilot. As the technology has become cheaper and more sophisticated, the use of drones for recreational and commercial purposes has grown, with the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) reporting a significant increase in the number of permissions obtained for operating commercial drones in the UK. Despite their potential to reduce costs, improve efficiency and provide new services, drones may be misused accidentally or for malicious purposes. For example, reports of drone sightings at Gatwick Airport in December 2018 grounded around 1,000 flights for almost 36 hours, affecting more than 140,000 passengers. In 2018, the Government introduced new limits on where drones can be flown and new registration and education requirements for drone operators and pilots. In January 2020, the new Government introduced an Air Traffic Management and Unmanned Aircraft Bill to Parliament that included new police powers for enforcing aviation laws (such as the power to issue a fixed penalty notice for certain drone offences). This POSTnote looks at civilian drones and their applications, focusing on potential misuse and possible responses.
Drones can be particularly useful in remote, inaccessible or dangerous settings. Some of the current applications of drones include: photography and filming for research, inspecting infrastructure for wear and damage, and emergency response, including to aid search and rescue and provide surveillance of a disaster area. While they have many benefits, the speed, low cost and increasing flight range and capacity to carry items can also make them attractive to people who may use them maliciously, recklessly, negligently or with criminal intent. Examples of their misuse include causing disruption to other aircraft, intrusion of privacy through filming people without permission, facilitating physical or cyber-attacks, and enabling other criminal activity (such as flying contraband into prisons).
Key points:
Drone use is growing, with one projection suggesting that more than 76,000 drones, operated by government and commercial organisations, may be in use in the UK by 2030.
Greater drone use affords many potential social and economic benefits. For example, they are being used for environmental monitoring and to support search and rescue teams.
Despite this, drones may be misused accidently or deliberately, presenting new challenges for safety and security.
There are a variety of technological ways of addressing drone misuse. They include those built into drones, and those that can detect, track, seize, disable or destroy drones posing a threat.
Detecting a drone’s presence, and tracking its location, can be difficult, but some of the techniques used for drone surveillance include radiofrequency, radar, video and acoustic technologies.
Drones may be equipped with built-in geofencing software, creating virtual boundaries limiting where they can fly.
There are also techniques that can be used to disable a drone in flight. These include physical methods such as projectiles, guns that fire a net and birds of prey trained to seize small drones from the air.
Non-physical methods to disable a drone include radiofrequency jamming, which can disrupt the communications link between a drone and its pilot.
Civilian drones must comply with existing civil aviation legislation. In the UK, this is primarily the Civil Aviation Act 1982 and the Air Navigation Order 2016 (ANO).
The ANO was updated in 2018 to introduce new restrictions for drones, including prohibiting small drones (up to 20 kg) from flying over 400 feet, or within 1 km of airport boundaries, and requiring operators of drones weighing 250 g or more to register with the CAA,and pilots to pass an online competency test.
The ANO was updated again in 2019, extending the flight restriction zone at protected aerodromes (including airports and airfields). This amendment increased the flight restriction zone around aerodrome boundaries from 1 km to 4-5 km.
The widespread commercial adoption of drones would require developments in technology and the legislation governing their use.
Widespread drone use may also raise other challenges in the future, such as contributing to noise pollution,which could become an issue if drone operations (such as delivery) become routine in urban areas.
Acknowledgements
POSTnotes are based on literature reviews and interviews with a range of stakeholders and are externally peer reviewed. POST would like to thank interviewees and peer reviewers for kindly giving up their time during the preparation of this briefing, including:
All Party Parliamentary Group on Drones
Andre Burgess, National Physics Laboratory
Andrew Chadwick, Royal Aeronautical Society*
ARPAS UK*
Carla Washbourne, University College London
Christian Struwe, DJI*
Civil Aviation Authority*
David Guerin, Gatco*
David Phipps, British Model Flying Association
Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy*
Department for Transport*
Dr Anna Jackman, Royal Holloway, University of London*
Dr Mirko Kovac, Imperial College London
Dr Monica Rivas Casado, Cranfield University
Dr Paul Cureton, Lancaster University*
Dr Stephen Prior, University of Southampton*
Dr Stuart Dunning, Newcastle University
Home Office*
Jim Cranswick, NATS
Jonathan Keating, Government Office for Science
Karim Cosslett, Thales*
Kathy Nothstine, Nesta
Kerry Blakeman, Droneheights (formerly West Midlands Police)*
Mark Callaghan, Sussex Police
Mark Lever, Gatwick Airport*
Members of the POST board*
Ministry of Defence
Professor David Dunn, University of Birmingham*
Professor James Scanlan, University of Southampton*
Richard Toomer, BALPA*
Ricky Bhargava, Nesta*
Roger Gardner, University of Southampton
Tom Self, Wright Acoustics*
*denotes people and organisations who acted as external reviewers of the briefing.
The CAA’s Assistant Director of Corporate Communications launched the “CAA On Air” podcast on January 8th 2020. On Air is a monthly podcast from the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority featuring experts from across the aviation industry.
Each month, you’ll hear how our Innovation team is working with organisations to support new aviation related products and services. We’ll also bring you interviews and updates relating to drones and recreational flying.
About this episode
In Episode 1 UK CAA Director Jonathan Nicholson speaks to Innovation Strategy Lead David Tait to find out how his team is working with organisations to support innovations and new products coming to the UK aviation market.
We also hear from Rachel Gardner-Poole, Head of the General Aviation Unit about how the CAA is working with organisations like the British Microlight Aircraft Association to delegate licensing and approval responsibilities where appropriate.
In the final section of this episode, UAS Sector Lead Andy Hamilton explains how drone users can stay up to date with the latest safety guidance.
Heathrow Airport has installed a system to block drones entering its airspace
London’s Heathrow airport has deployed a system designed to block drones entering its airspace following a string of recent attempts that threatened Europe’s busiest travel hub.
The airport, classified as a flight restriction zone by authorities, is now using a product manufactured by France’s Thales SA to detect and identify drones. The French company declined Tuesday to detail the contract’s value or the precise specification being used at Heathrow.
Heathrow chose a holographic radar system developed by Aveillant Ltd., a Cambridge, England company acquired by Thales in 2017. Its technology is now part of the French defense contractor’s anti-drone solution, EagleShield.
The radar system is also used at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport. It can detect drones as far as 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away in all directions, according to Aveillant’s website. Appropriate countermeasures can then be deployed.
Representatives for Thales wouldn’t say what Heathrow planned to use as a countermeasure, but said drone-disabling technology was not part of its contract with the airport.
Away from transit hubs, common solutions include the use of radio waves to jam the signal used by a pilot to control a drone, or take over control of the unit. Other methods include dispatching eagles or giant nets to pull craft out of the sky.
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