At the 9th DroneCamp this year --- hosted at CSU Monterey Bay and led by Informatics and GIS Statewide Program of UC ANR in collaboration with instructors from UC Santa Cruz, UC Merced and CSU Monterey Bay --- participants explored novel ways on how they can use drone data to solve problems in their specific domain of work. While for those who are working in the realm of agriculture, vegetation, or plant health, the utility of drone data may be obvious. But this may not be the case for several others who are trying to find ways to use this technology to solve a specific problem outside of agriculture.
Meet Laura Melendy – Executive Director at the Learn2Launch and Assistant Director at the Institute of Transportation Studies at UC Berkeley – “I am interested in learning more about how drones can be used in transportation such as bridge inspection or doing damage inspections”. They can be critical even during emergency and in the event of natural disasters. In remote places where it may not be easy to send the crew to do manual inspections of bridges, drones could be the next big thing. Although there are regulations that prevent flying drones from flying beyond the visible line of sight, we will need to find ways to get special permission to be able to fly them beyond where our eyes can see them. Only then we can get to remote areas”.
Similarly, Mingliang Tang, a PhD student from civil engineering at UC said. “I am curious how we can use thermal or spectral to detect holes in the levees or damage in the levees”. Animals dig holes in the levees which can reduce the protection they offer during the time of flood.
Joshua Carpenter who serves as a Resource Conservation Specialist from Monterey Peninsula Regional Park District, said he would like to use drones for managing weeds and vegetation but also wild pigs. “We do know there is a problem of wild pigs and we just don't have the data”.
Another participant from archaeology background said, “Drones can be very useful for archaeological surveys. Earlier, people used to stand up on the ladder and examine the objects. With Drones it is becoming a lot easier. We would still have to send the objects to the lab to determine the date or the time period they belong to, but at least we can do an aerial survey of the site”.
Drones data have have already found novel applications such as reading labels on tankers carrying hazardous waste material, identifying damage on solar panels among others.
“We are already seeing drones being used for detecting hazardous waste material. You can fly drone close to the tanker to read the label and that way you don't have to send a person close to the tanker to physically read. Insurance companies are already using this to do damage inspections due to wildfires.
Another novel application was by a biologist Dylan Moran who used drones to study juvenile sharks versus adult sharks in relation to ocean temperatures and identify patterns when they are likely to be found close to warm water and shore. The findings can be used to assess damage done by boats and humans as these sharks get killed. Being able to make the correlation based on the water temperature and juvenile sharks that prefer to be closer to the shore has important implications for policy, said Moran.