Field Update - October 23rd

This blog entry is an update of an ongoing project in the McCormick Woodlot, located in W.Lafayette, Indiana. Our group is working with the Purdue University Department of Forestry and Natural Resources to monitor the lot. After further development of methodology, as informed by the fieldwork performed on October 23rd, the FNR department should be able to identify species, forest structure, and biomass within the woodlot.

This particular operation had a few primary goals. The first was to establish adequate ground control that would be firmly viewable in the drone imagery. This would inform future operations around this woodlot regarding ground control should be placed. After rectification of imagery, the impacts of the GPS points will be assessed. Ultimately, we were successful in this goal and are basing future placement of Aeropoint GPS points roughly on the placement of this operation.

The second goal was to capture as much of the woodlot as possible. Through some preliminary flights, it became clear that this step is more difficult than one might assume. Due to the low altitude allowable for our operation of 200ft under the LAANC system, maintaining visual line of sight and radio telemetry is difficult while flying over the tall forest trees. While this flight was good practice for using LAANC, in which we received proper FAA authorization for our operation, we were not able to collect data for the entire woodlot. Based on the flight plans we created, we were not able to maintain line of sight and radio telemetry. However, we did collect good subset data as well as telemetry information that would allow for more successful flight planning of future operations at this woodlot.

This outing was also very important for developing crew resource management skills. We developed a group oriented strategy for maintaining safe operation. This included a central team, called flight crew. This included Ryan Ferguson, the pilot for the flights of this operation, and myself who acted as mission organizer and primary observer. The rest of the class was split into groups of three which included one individual to scan the environment and maintain radio communications, another individual to watch for airtraffic, and a third to maintain line of site with the aircraft. We used a positive exchange of radio communication to insure line of sight was never consistently lost and that the aircraft was flying safely. This aspect was extremely successful.

Ultimately, this field outing was structured around building field skills and fine tuning operations around this woodlot. Further operations should be increasingly successful at gathering data of the entire woodlot and strengthen group efficiency for future operation.

 

Initial setup of ground equipment

 H520 aircraft; Fantastic sensor, but has limitations regarding radio communication connection

 This is the initial takeoff area; the entirety of the Western edge of the woodlot is within visual line of sight

Pilot, Ryan, and graduate remote sensing student, Aish, preparing for takeoff. I was acting as operational organizer and communications organizer, as well as observer

 An example of the radios that were dispersed between ground crews and the flight crew