Dawn of Drone Ecology: Low-Cost Autonomous Aerial Vehicles for Conservation

Abstract

Tropical deforestation continues to be a major driver of biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions. Remote sensing technology is increasingly used to assess changes in forest cover, species distributions and carbon stocks. However, satellite and airborne sensors can be prohibitively costly and inaccessible for researchers in developing countries. Here, we describe the development and use of an inexpensive (<$2,000) unmanned aerial vehicle for surveying and mapping forests and biodiversity (referred to as 'Conservation Drone' hereafter). Our prototype drone is able to fly pre-programmed missions autonomously for a total flight time of ~25 minutes and over a distance of ~15 km. Non-technical operators can program each mission by defining waypoints along a flight path using an open-source software. This drone can record videos at up to 1080 pixel resolution (high definition), and acquire aerial photographs of <10 cm pixel resolution. Aerial photographs can be stitched together to produce real-time geo-referenced land use/cover maps of surveyed areas. We evaluate the performance of this prototype Conservation Drone based on a series of test flights in Aras Napal, Sumatra, Indonesia. We discuss the further development of Conservation Drone 2.0, which will have a bigger payload and longer range. Initial tests suggest a flight time of ~50 minutes and a range of ~25 km. Finally, we highlight the potential of this system for environmental and conservation applications, which include near real-time mapping of local land cover, monitoring of illegal forest activities, and surveying of large animal species.

A small unmanned aerial system for estimating abundance and size of Antarctic predators

“…The advantages of fixed-wing aircraft versus VTOLs depend upon individual ecological applications (Koh and Wich 2012;Sardà-Palomera et al 2012;Hodgson et al 2013). However, for wildlife census applications where portability, limited takeoff and landing distances, flight stability, hovering capability, and quiet operation around easily disturbed wildlife are important, the VTOL described and used in this study is exceptional.…”

Monitoring tropical debris-covered glacier dynamics from high-resolution unmanned aerial vehicle photogrammetry, Cordillera Blanca, Peru

“…The use of UAVs in earth science research is undergoing rapid expansion with numerous researchers exploiting the financial and spatiotemporal resolution benefits of UAV technology (Ahmad, 2011;Colomina and Molina, 2014;D'Oleire-Oltmanns et al, 2012;Hardin and Jensen, 2011;Koh and Wich, 2012;Vivoni et al, 2014;Watts et al, 2012). A few projects have utilised UAV platforms in mountainous glaciated regions (Bhardwaj et al, 2016).…”

Nature Conservation Drones for Automatic Localization and Counting of Animals

“…The type of drones that are specifically useful for nature conservation are the modified model aircraft and multi-rotor. They are both affordable and easily converted into a drone with highly affordable open source autopilots like Ardupilot [20] or Paparazzi [13]. The modified model aircrafts yield long flying times and larger forward speed to cover more ground.…”

“…Drones are currently already employed for conservation [20] for terrain mapping and classification of forest types [18,16,21,35,14]. These are examples of uses where no real time data analysis is needed [5].…”

“…Conservation workers have started using small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or "conservation drones") both for determining animal abundance and to obtain data on their threats [18,20]. Conservation drones are relatively inexpensive and easy to build, which makes drones accessible and affordable for many research teams in developing countries.…”