There is a certain amount of buzz around drones at the moment - check these links to get the idea:
Conservation drone project
Conservation Drone - Mongabay
Rhino poacher vs google drone
The Guardian - ecology drones
Made (in)famous through their use in conflict zones and counter terrorist operations, they are now being widely applied to the field of conservation. We have had our eye on them for a little while and with a bit of end-of-year leftover budget we should be able to get our hands on one.
This morning we made our way down to Wakehurst Place to test out the SenseFly eBee. It was a cold, grey morning and the wind was at the limit of the eBee's recommended tolerance - a good day for a test then!
Unlike pilot controlled models, the course of the eBee is set through software on a handheld tablet pc. Enter your area of interest and altitude and as soon as the GPS is ready, you are good to go.
A standard compact camera is embedded in the drone and it takes images automatically as it works its way up and down the area of interest through a series of back and forth flights paths. In a matter of minutes the drone had finished its job and was circling above our heads preparing to land. Maybe it was the gusty wind or the tufty grass, we're not sure, but it took a bit of a tumble on the landing.
There is a bit of post processing needed to stitch the images together and rectify them, but nothing too onerous. All very neat stuff, but how exactly are the drones useful for our work? We have several ideas where they may come in useful. For example, single species monitoring. Some plants can be identified quite well from aerial imagery and the drone allows a rapid survey at relatively low cost (compared to purchasing high resolution satellite imagery). It could also be used for rapid vegetation survey for small to medium sized areas e.g 10 - 50 square kilometers. It also could be a powerful monitoring tool used to detect changes - you can very easily return to the same area over and over again and then analyse the images to see what has changed.
As it turns, out the first use will probably be in Peru where we have a project that requires cows to be counted to look at the impact they are having on the vegetation. So, maybe they will live up to the hype - the sky is the limit!
Conservation drone project
Conservation Drone - Mongabay
Rhino poacher vs google drone
The Guardian - ecology drones
Made (in)famous through their use in conflict zones and counter terrorist operations, they are now being widely applied to the field of conservation. We have had our eye on them for a little while and with a bit of end-of-year leftover budget we should be able to get our hands on one.
This morning we made our way down to Wakehurst Place to test out the SenseFly eBee. It was a cold, grey morning and the wind was at the limit of the eBee's recommended tolerance - a good day for a test then!
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| The SenseFly eBee getting - GPS ready and waiting for flight plan |
There is a bit of post processing needed to stitch the images together and rectify them, but nothing too onerous. All very neat stuff, but how exactly are the drones useful for our work? We have several ideas where they may come in useful. For example, single species monitoring. Some plants can be identified quite well from aerial imagery and the drone allows a rapid survey at relatively low cost (compared to purchasing high resolution satellite imagery). It could also be used for rapid vegetation survey for small to medium sized areas e.g 10 - 50 square kilometers. It also could be a powerful monitoring tool used to detect changes - you can very easily return to the same area over and over again and then analyse the images to see what has changed.
As it turns, out the first use will probably be in Peru where we have a project that requires cows to be counted to look at the impact they are having on the vegetation. So, maybe they will live up to the hype - the sky is the limit!
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