Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems for Low‐Altitude Aerial Surveys

Abstract

: Unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) are proposed as a useful alternative to manned aircraft for some aerial wildlife surveys. We described the components and current capabilities of a small UAS developed specifically for wildlife and ecological surveys that is currently in field use for a variety of applications. We also reviewed government regulations currently affecting the use of UASs in civilian airspace. Information on capabilities and regulations will be valuable for agencies and individuals interested in the potential UASs offer for monitoring wildlife populations and their habitat. Descriptions of current uses and recommendations for future employment will be helpful in implementing this technology efficiently for aerial surveys as the civilian sector begins to adopt UASs for peacetime missions.

A new framework for selecting environmental surrogates

“…Another technological advancement that will change the cost and usefulness of potential surrogates is the suite of remote sensing technologies (Pettorelli et al, 2014). In particular, high-resolution, low-cost aerial imagery is becoming increasingly available (Watts et al, 2010). Similarly, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) allows accurate measurement of the 3D structure of an ecosystem over much larger spatial scales than is possible using field data collection methods (Listopad et al, 2015).…”

Use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Delineate Fine-Scale Wetland Vegetation Communities

“…Corps of Engineers-Jacksonville District (COE) by the University of Florida Unmanned Aircraft Systems Research Program (UFUASRP). The Nova line was specifically developed by the UFUASRP for natural resources applications (Watts et al 2010;Martin et al 2012). The completely electric-powered, hand-launched, 2.7 m wingspan aircraft can weigh up to 6.4 kg fully loaded, is capable of terrestrial or amphibious landings, and has an average flight time of approximately 40 min.…”

“…Techniques such as sub-pixel classification and fuzzy classification (Wang 1990;Liu and Wu 2005) address this issue, but they require detailed spatial information from a sufficient number of pixels to train the classification model. Imagery from small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are a relatively new source of data that is gaining popularity in ecological applications (Watts et al 2010;Martin et al 2012;Anderson and Gaston 2013). UAS can provide imagery with the appropriate resolution (<10 cm) for community level classification (Getzin et al 2012) and are becoming more financially accessible as technology improves and demand increases (Anderson and Gaston 2013).…”

Analysis of flood modeling through innovative geomatic methods

“…High spatial resolution, Very High Resolution images (VHR imagery) of 5-10 cm spatial resolution (Lejot et al, 2007), LiDAR Digital Elevation Models (DEM), with nominal accuracies from ±0.15 m to ±0.25 m (Lane et al, 2003), classic surveying with accuracy of ±0.05 m (Prinos, 2008), the use of observations Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) as a source of calibration flood modeling (Horritt and Bates, 2001), and the use of innovative aerial platforms low flying height, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) (Vallet et al, 2011), which allow high spatial resolutions, but have a set of limitations, technical and administrative described in (Hardin and Jensen, 2011;Watts et al, 2010). The temporary flight restriction penalizes its applicability in river studies as it is shown in (Ortega-Terol et al, 2014), with a study case length of 132 km.…”