VICKSBURG, Miss - If you happen to spot small flying machines zooming above the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg, Mississippi don’t be alarmed - it’s just the Environmental Laboratory’s unmanned aircraft system (UAS) vehicles being maneuvered by team members from the Environmental Risk Assessment Branch (EPR).
Practicing for their Army experimental airworthiness certificate for its systems and payloads, these pilots also seek site certifications for operational zones.
Navigators exhibiting skyward skills include Justin Wilkens, Jenny Laird and Robby Boyd, all research biologists and EPR-UAS team members. The team is led by Buddy Goatcher, EPR branch chief and expert in manned rotorcraft wildlife research.
The future is already here and up in the air – literally – for monitoring and sampling sites too dangerous or too environmentally sensitive for workers’ presence, through the use of UASs (previously labeled unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs).
Goatcher said, “The small UAS platform is capable of deploying a wide array of sensors and will soon be as common to scientists as the slide-rule was to researchers in the 1970s and as the personal computer is today. The UAS is not a program per se, but an innovative and adaptable tool of high value for field data acquisition to many scientific disciplines.”
The U.S. military began investing heavily in UASs the 1950s. The EPR program has been testing the rotary wing platforms for more than a year now.
“Recently, use of civil and public UASs has been growing,” Goatcher said. “A variety of UAS technologies offer different sizes, from military jet-sized UASs down to miniature models which appear as flying insects and fit in the palm of your hand. Over the last decade, researchers have tested UASs for environmental monitoring, search and rescue, surveillance, inspections and mapping. UASs include a variety of fixed-wing and rotary wing platforms.”
We currently are testing several DJI products including the Phantom 1, Phantom 2 Vision, and Flamewheel F550; and a Turbo Ace product, the Cinewing 6 HL. These platforms are ideal for monitoring or inspection applications because they are able to fly slow and low and are highly maneuverable,” Goatcher said.
These attributes are well-suited for environmental monitoring, particularly in fragile wetland ecosystems where “boots on the ground” may not be the best strategy.
“Our platforms are small, weighing less than 10 pounds,” Wilkens said. “They can fly for up to 25 minutes and carry payloads ranging from 500 grams to almost 10 pounds. Each platform integrates a flight control system which autonomously stabilizes the aircraft and allows for remotely controlled navigation. We have also integrated an autopilot which permits autonomous flights based on predefined waypoints.
“They have received the mistaken identity of ‘drones.’ According to the Federal Aviation Administration, a UAS is all the associated support equipment, control station, data links, telemetry, communications and navigation equipment necessary to operate the unmanned aircraft. Technically, they are not entirely unmanned, as the UAS is flown by a pilot via a ground control system. It can also be flown autonomously through the use of an on-board computer, communication link and other additional equipment that is monitored by the operator,” Wilkens said.
Since the ER-P Branch researches risks and stressors in the environment for sustainable solutions, Wilkens said the UASs “are revolutionizing our ability to monitor and understand the environment. The safety of the operator is even more important. It’s no longer necessary to send an operator up in full-size airborne operations or on dangerous low altitude missions to collect data when it can be collected by a UAS operated by a remote pilot on the ground.
“Interestingly, the cost of one hour in a typical manned helicopter is equivalent to purchasing a UAS equipped with a high definition camera and ready to fly out of the box,” Goatcher said.
EPR is considering several unique payload options for testing. These include net guns, infrared and multi-spectral cameras, paint ball launchers to mark locations and deliver spot applications of herbicides and sampling apparatuses for collecting sediment and water samples or measuring water quality.
“We are not the only ones testing this new technology at ERDC,” said Goatcher. “EL wildlife biologists and environmentalists are using UASs for bird surveys and for remote sensing applications. Our Information Technology Laboratory also has fixed-wing and rotary UAS assets.”
Burhman Gates, a researcher with ERDC’s Geotechnical and Structures Laboratory, seized the opportunity to cooperate with EL’s UAS team for his own trial project.
“What we're after are photos of the ground surface for use in generating a scene to simulate sensors and perception algorithms aboard autonomous ground vehicles. The photos are better if taken normal to the surface. Also, it's better if the sky is overcast and ambient light is high enough to take the photo.
“The area we're modeling now is the Forest Service Road. We're collecting the geometry of the site first and applying textures to the geometry as it's available. The ground surface textures will either come from normalized photos taken from the ground using a ladder or fork lift/man-basket, or photos from EL’s remotely piloted quad copters, so this is a trial to see how the quad rotor could work out for us,” Gates said.
While traditional manned helicopters can fly slowly and hover at low altitudes, making them ideal for visual observations, the presence and noise can be quite disturbing, not only to humans but to wildlife.
“Low level flights in manned helicopters are commonly used to assess environmental damages, monitor wildlife, or to inspect public and civil projects which put humans in the aircraft and on the ground at risk of death or serious injury in the event of an accident. Our spill damage assessors no longer have to don protective gear and wade into contaminated environments to sample for contaminants and risk personal exposure. Managers can rest easy and not be stricken with vicarious liability concerns when a UAS replaces staff and takes on the recon and sampling of hazardous locations, such as spills or unexploded ordinance sites. We anticipate more will be accomplished with UAS tools, at less cost and less liability,” Goatcher said.
There are numerous benefits to using these systems with high spatial resolution, quick turnaround of deliverables, lower operating costs and complexities, and enhanced safety considerations.