Wetland Monitoring Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Electrical Distributed Propulsion Systems

Abstract

The inspection of wetlands in the Ecuadorian highlands has gained importance due to the environmental issues linked to the growth of human activities and the expansion of the agricultural and livestock frontiers. In this sense, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been amply used in monitoring activities such as the supervision of threatened ecosystems, where cyclic measurements and high-resolution imagery are needed. However, the harsh operating conditions in the Andean highlands and sensitive ecosystem restrictions demand efficient propulsion configurations with low environmental impact. Electrical distributed propulsion (EDP) systems have surged as a forefront alternative since they offer benefits in both the propulsive and aerodynamic performance of fixed-wing UAVs. In this chapter, an EDP system is sized for a design point at the Andean operating conditions. Thereafter, two propulsion configurations were established based on off-the-shelf components, and their performance was characterized through analytical approaches. These results highlight the trends in power consumption and performance when the number of propulsors is increased. A significant contribution of this work is to exhibit important patterns in the performance of electric propulsion by using commercial components, and to set the operating limitations that can be further explored for analogous configurations in larger UAVs.

Wetland monitoring technification for the Ecuadorian Andean region based on a multi-agent framework

“…As described in Section 1 , a significant milestone in the development of remote sensing in the Andean region is the capability of assessing wetland saturation with RGB sensors to reduce operational costs. For this aim an RGB image in-house Python algorithm [23] was applied to segment pixels through an HSV color model to define saturated and non-saturated zones. In Fig.…”

“…Besides, a high level of automation can be achieved at a low operational cost by using small electric UAVs. Notwithstanding, as is shown in [22] , [23] , the harsh operating conditions in high Andean ecosystems, such as low temperatures, strong wind gusts, and low air density; must be considered, when tailoring a commercial UAV for wetland monitoring. For instance, strong wind-gusts affect maneuverability and stability, reducing endurance dramatically, as the UAV needs to drain more energy from the battery to keep the aircraft within the planned path.…”

“…The cost of these cameras depends on their features, resolution, number of sensors, among others. For instance, when comparing multispectral cameras with the common visual spectrum (RGB) cameras, the maintenance and operation expenses increase the cost of multispectral imagery by a factor of ten compared to its RGB counterpart [23] , making its continuous deployment almost prohibitive for the current application. These aspects have encouraged many institutions to develop their own image processing platforms tailored for RGB images [31] , [32] , [33] .…”