scholarly journals Deriving Fire Behavior Metrics from UAS Imagery

Fire ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Moran ◽  
Carl A. Seielstad ◽  
Matthew R. Cunningham ◽  
Valentijn Hoff ◽  
Russell A. Parsons ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Prescribed Fires ◽  
Rate Of Spread ◽  
Complex Interactions ◽  
Sensing Platform ◽  
Fire Environment ◽  
Rotor Wing ◽  
Heavy Tailed ◽  
Aerial Systems

The emergence of affordable unmanned aerial systems (UAS) creates new opportunities to study fire behavior and ecosystem pattern—process relationships. A rotor-wing UAS hovering above a fire provides a static, scalable sensing platform that can characterize terrain, vegetation, and fire coincidently. Here, we present methods for collecting consistent time-series of fire rate of spread (RoS) and direction in complex fire behavior using UAS-borne NIR and Thermal IR cameras. We also develop a technique to determine appropriate analytical units to improve statistical analysis of fire-environment interactions. Using a hybrid temperature-gradient threshold approach with data from two prescribed fires in dry conifer forests, the methods characterize complex interactions of observed heading, flanking, and backing fires accurately. RoS ranged from 0–2.7 m/s. RoS distributions were all heavy-tailed and positively-skewed with area-weighted mean spread rates of 0.013–0.404 m/s. Predictably, the RoS was highest along the primary vectors of fire travel (heading fire) and lower along the flanks. Mean spread direction did not necessarily follow the predominant head fire direction. Spatial aggregation of RoS produced analytical units that averaged 3.1–35.4% of the original pixel count, highlighting the large amount of replicated data and the strong influence of spread rate on unit size.

scholarly journals OPPORTUNITIES OF UAVS IN ORCHARD MANAGEMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol XLII-2/W13 ◽  
pp. 673-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Zhang ◽  
J. Valente ◽  
L. Kooistra ◽  
L. Guo ◽  
W. Wang
Keyword(s):  
Precision Agriculture ◽  
Fruit Trees ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Physiological Variables ◽  
Sensing Platform ◽  
Orchard Management ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
General Data ◽  
Geometric Variables ◽  
Aerial Systems

<p><strong>Abstract.</strong> The growth process of fruit trees is accompanied by a large number of monitoring and management activities, such as pruning, irrigation, fertilization, spraying, and harvesting, which are labour intensive and time consuming. In the context of precision agriculture, automation and precision orchard management not only saves labour resources and increases the income of growers, but also has great significance in improving resource utilization. Recent technological developments enable Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs, also commonly referred to as Unmanned Aerial Systems, or ‘drones’) to become an efficient monitoring tool for improving orchard management, that can provide growers much more detailed and precise information about fruit crops health status, geometric variables, physiological variables etc. This paper reviews the use of UAVs in orchard management, with a focus on recent UAV applications, synthetically describing the existing situation (e.g., general data processing approaches, sensing platform and sensor uploaded). The challenges and prospects of UAVs opportunities in orchard management are also summarized.</p>

scholarly journals Aerial Imagery Based on Commercial Flights as Remote Sensing Platform

Sensors ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1658 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Mastelic ◽  
Josip Lorincz ◽  
Ivan Ivandic ◽  
Matea Boban
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Spatial Resolution ◽  
Aerial Photography ◽  
Storage Capacity ◽  
Image Data ◽  
Aerial Imagery ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Sensing Platform ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Aerial Systems

Remote sensing is commonly performed via airborne platforms such as satellites, specialized aircraft, and unmanned aerial systems (UASs), which perform airborne photography using mounted cameras. However, they are limited by their coverage (UASs), irregular flyover frequency (aircraft), and/or low spatial resolution (satellites) due to their high altitude. In this paper, we examine the utilization of commercial flights as an airborne platform for remote sensing. Namely, we simulate a situation where all aircraft on commercial flights are equipped with a mounted camera used for airborne photography. The simulation is used to estimate coverage, the temporal and spatial resolution of aerial imagery acquired this way, as well as the storage capacity required for storing all imagery data. The results show that Europe is 83.28 percent covered with an average of one aerial photography every half an hour and a ground sampling distance of 0.96 meters per pixel. Capturing such imagery results in 20 million images or four petabytes of image data per day. More detailed results are given in the paper for separate countries/territories in Europe, individual commercial airlines and alliances, as well as three different cameras.

LIGHTER-THAN-AIR (LTA) UNMANNED AERIAL SYSTEM (UAS) CARRIER CONCEPT FOR SURVAILLANCE AND DISASTER MANAGEMENT

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 1255
Author(s):  
Ahmad Salahuddin Mohd Harithuddin ◽  
Mohd Fazri Sedan ◽  
Syaril Azrad Md Ali ◽  
Shattri Mansor ◽  
Hamid Reza Jifroudi ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Unmanned Aerial System ◽  
Border Control ◽  
Aerial Vehicles ◽  
Operational Safety ◽  
In Situ Methods ◽  
Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) has many advantages in the fields of SURVAILLANCE and disaster management compared to space-borne observation, manned missions and in situ methods. The reasons include cost effectiveness, operational safety, and mission efficiency. This has in turn underlined the importance of UAS technology and highlighted a growing need in a more robust and efficient unmanned aerial vehicles to serve specific needs in SURVAILLANCE and disaster management. This paper first gives an overview on the framework for SURVAILLANCE particularly in applications of border control and disaster management and lists several phases of SURVAILLANCE and service descriptions. Based on this overview and SURVAILLANCE phases descriptions, we show the areas and services in which UAS can have significant advantage over traditional methods.

Beach and dune impacts due to Hurricane Florence in Dare County, North Carolina

Shore & Beach ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 44-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Sciaudone ◽  
Liliana Velasquez-Montoya
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
State University ◽  
National Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Sediment Samples ◽  
Wildlife Refuge ◽  
Full Report ◽  
Aerial Systems

Less than two weeks after Hurricane Florence made landfall in North Carolina (NC), a team of researchers from NC State University traveled to Dare County to investigate the storm’s effects on beaches and dunes. Using available post-storm imagery and prior knowledge of vulnerabilities in the system, the team identified several locations to visit in the towns of Kitty Hawk, Nags Head, Rodanthe, Buxton, and Hatteras, as well as a number of locations within the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge (Figure 1). Data collected included topographic profiles, still imagery and video from unmanned aerial systems, sediment samples, and geo-located photography. This Coastal Observations piece presents some of the data and photos collected; the full report is available online (Sciaudone et al. 2019), and data collected will be made available to interested researchers upon request.

A Comparative Economic Study on the Use of Unmanned Aerial Systems versus Motorcycles to Transport Laboratory Samples in Liberia

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter Ochieng ◽  
Tun Ye ◽  
Christina M. Scheel ◽  
Aun Lor ◽  
John M. Saindon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Economic Study ◽  
Aerial Systems
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