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Drones / Feed

Used to pick up signals from tracking gear on the ground, collect images of wildlife and habitats from the air, gather acoustic data with specialized hydrophones, or even collect snot samples from whales' blowholes, drones are capable of collecting high-resolution data quickly, noninvasively, and at relatively low cost.

discussion

"harvesting" camera traps, bioacoustic sensors via drones

Chris Nicholas

3 November 2017 4:12pm

greetings - I'm looking for someone to team up with to build the equivalent of the http://wadi.io remote data "harvesting" capability, whereby in-situ sensors can...

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Jane Wyngaard

15 November 2017 7:05pm

NASA/NOAA did something like this with microbuoys for ocean temp sensing in the arctic - drone deploys (drops) micrbuoys and repeatedly returns to fly over fetching data over the following days and weeks

http://www.arcticobservingsummit.org/sites/arcticobservingsummit.org/files/Bradley_Microbuoys_AOS.pdf

Do you have a specific use case /location in mind?


If we could find research funding I'd be interested, I can fly &build UAS but this is also an interesting data management opportunity which I'm very interested in.

Perhaps you could mod the Ardupilot tracking antenna system if really needed but if you're flying in the vicinity with line of sight I bet you don't even need to aim the antenna 

Dave Bengtson

17 November 2017 2:31am

I've seen a couple of papers on similar capabilities, both with airborne drones as well as underwater drones, so there've been folks working on it. @emjay has a good point that the sensor nodes need to support this, which could be a bit tricky depending on your tolerance for battery life. What types of sensors are you thinking about supporting?

Ed Miller

21 December 2017 3:48am

Hi Chris,

Your project sounds interesting! How's it coming along? 

I'm based in the SF Bay Area. I don't have much drone experience, but it's something that I've been looking into recently. I'm currently working on a face recgnition system for brown bears with a bear researcher in BC, Canada. The goal is to identify bears on the data from camera traps to monitor populations and such. Currently the data is only collected a few times a season.

I agree with @emjay that the ground assets may be an issue. Do you have any thoughts on that front?

In any case, if you have some time in the coming weeks, I'd be happy to get together in the coming weeks to talk it over.

Ed

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discussion

Drone Tracker

Mazidi Abd Ghani

23 August 2017 6:47am

Hi all, I'm looking for a stand alone tracker for drone as part of risk mitigation for a missing drone (due to flyaway or crash). The idea is this tracker will help...

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Mazidi Abd Ghani

24 August 2017 2:54am

Hi Lot,

Thank you for your input. Currently we are the end user instead of developer. That means, we are still using commercial drone like DJI series. However the link that you give absolutely useful for our upcoming innovation plans.

Since we still using commercial type quadcopter, I'm looking for stand alone tracker that work as seperate system from the drone. In other words, this tracker will not be affected should the drone system crash.

So far me and my team come across this device

http://www.dronesmadeeasy.com/Marco-Polo-Drone-Tracker-RF-Recovery-p/marco_polo_1.htm

Unfortunately, the radio signal frequency range so far not approved by Malaysian authority. So, I'm looking for other option.

Anyone in this forum have other option/ opinion?

Regards,

Mazidi

  

 

Mike Johnston

24 August 2017 6:51am

Hi Mazidi,

 

A couple of options;

- Marco Polo.    http://eurekaproducts.com/rc-model-tracking-and-recovery/    

I know of people who have relocated their machine using this device.   

- Conventional VHF for wildlife tracking.  old but solid technology.

Also have a look at commercial / open source devices used for model rockets.

regards

MJ

 

EDIT: I see that you have already identified Marco Polo.

Lot Amorós

24 August 2017 1:15pm

Hi Mazidi, all the systems that I recommended are separate systems with their own GPS, not connected to the drone.

Just the last one was the only finished product.

Good luck. Please tell us if you found something good and cheap!

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discussion

[ARCHIVE] OpenAerialMap

Thomas Starnes

19 June 2017 10:54am

There is a new platform, developed by the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) called OpenAerialMap. They have developed the platform for humanitarian mapping, but are throwing...

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discussion

Best Practice for Using Drones for Conservation: Let's create a living guidelines document

Stephanie O'Donnell

3 February 2017 10:13am

Hi everyone,  There have been a couple of threads of conversation arising concurrently in the community that suggest there is a knowledge gap that we could collectively...

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Thomas Starnes

3 April 2017 8:45am

There's also GitLab. Again, it's probably not perfect as it's designed for coding, but I'm currently using it with a conference organising committee.

Tom Swinfield

3 April 2017 9:44am

I personally think a wiki would be best. 

Tom August

23 June 2017 5:23pm

People in this thread might be interested in this special issue of remote sensing in ecology and conservation, looking for papers on "New Approaches to Citizen Science". Submissions close 15th July 

http://zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)2056-3485/journal-menu/call-for-papers.html

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discussion

OpenDroneMap

Thomas Starnes

3 April 2017 9:24am

I'm interested in using OpenDroneMap. Does anyone out there have experience of using ODM, and do you any feedback? How do you find it? How does it compare to Pix4D,...

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Lot Amorós

8 April 2017 5:56pm

Hi Thomas,

I tested it with some success, Pix4D offers more quality but ODM is doing the job quite well.

Since the process is quite demanding I will recomend you to execute ODM nativelly without virtual machine.

Maybe you can go directly for webODM:

https://github.com/OpenDroneMap/WebODM

Thomas Starnes

19 June 2017 10:51am

Thanks @Lot ; I did try looking at WebODM but I even found this to be quite a convoluted process to get running. I've just volunteered as a tester for a new Windows one-click install for WebODM, so I'll take a look this week and feed back on this thread.

Lot Amorós

19 June 2017 11:20am

Cool! Thanks @Tomas Starnes.

Meanwhile, http://precisionmapper.com/ has adopted the freemium model, so the first 60 maps by year are free,  It's not open source but its free. I tried and works well, the 2d maps are perfect, the 3D digital model of terrain it's not the best but it's ok.

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discussion

Ground Control Points

Adrian Hughes

19 May 2017 2:49pm

I'm interested in finding out about the use of Ground Control Points (GCPs) for acquring drone imagery for mapping. My understanding is that you would only use them if...

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Thomas Starnes

30 May 2017 8:47am

Hey @ahughes_rspb , thanks for starting this thread! It would be really useful to share experience on GCPs in particular. We're about to start experimenting by processing images with and without GCPs, but I expect that others are ahead of us with this. I'm particularly interested in point 4 - how much to GCPs affect the vertical accuracy of DSMs? Any advice?

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discussion

UAV for surveying river dolphins in the Amazon

Marcelo Costa

14 February 2017 5:40pm

Monitoring river dolphins in the Amazon is expensive and time consuming. Because of that there is a scarce understanding about their abundance and distribution. Our study aimed at...

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Aurélie Shapiro

26 April 2017 2:50pm

Hi Marcelo,

To improve autonomy, you'll either need less weight on your drone, better batteries, or what about a fixed wing aircraft? Look at the parrot disco - it's much cheaper than the eBee, and you can outfit it with a downward facing camera instead of the forward, though it seems from your video, the one it has is fine). Those things can fly much longer than copters.

 

best,

aurélie

 

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discussion

Aerial seeding with drones

Lot Amorós

19 April 2017 1:09pm

Hi All, I just would like to share a video with some experiments that we made some years ago with aerial seeding from drones and massive seed ball production: https://www....

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John Probert

19 April 2017 2:35pm

This is really fascinating! This could also be potentially useful as a way to distribute vaccines for wildlife and livestock! 

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discussion

Drone training for forestry and conservation

Lot Amorós

27 March 2017 3:33pm

Introduction to the use of drone systems for forestry and conservation Learn the potential of drones to monitor and map your projects More info available in: https://...

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Stephanie O'Donnell

28 March 2017 10:03am

Thanks for sharing, @Lot  

Adding a little more info in case anyone was interested but didn't click through - also, earlybird tickets are still available. 

WORKSHOP & TRAINING:

Drone applications in sustainable natural resource management

When: 15th to 19th May, 2017
Where: Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan, Indonesia
For whom: Members of forestry companies, governmental environmental institutions, non-profit organizations and university research departments, as well as students.

@TWhitten this may be of interest for Indonesia team members using drones? 

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discussion

Operational guidance

Tony Whitten

26 January 2017 1:58pm

We are increasingly using drones (primarily DJI Phantoms) and our management feels we should have some institutional guidance for their use, to be superceded by national...

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Stephanie O'Donnell

20 February 2017 10:47am

Hi Jane, 

Thanks for sharing the work the Research Data Alliance is develooing. It sounds complementary to the guidelines our community has started collaboratively developing. You can see where these guidelines are at over here in this thread. It would be great to have your experience (and that of your colleagues) as part of these guidelines, so we invite you to come and join in that process of building out these guidelines and keeping them alive.

Thanks for sharing the invitation to join your kick off meeting in April - will that be held in Barcelona, 5-7 April, 2017? I'm keen to explore how we could align our efforts as it sounds like what you're proposing is more detailed than what we're envisaging, and with a complementary focus. I agree, it would be great to ensure the conservation community perspective is build into your plans, and WILDLABS is keen to help facilate that. At the very least, the guidelines I've mentioned above should be at a point then that they might be useful to feed into your kick off meeting. If you have any more information or specific asks as the date gets closer, please do share them here. 

Cheers, 

Steph

 

 

 

 

Stephanie O'Donnell

20 February 2017 12:13pm

Hi @twhitten ,

Over in the other thread  looking at developing best practise user guidelines @Jeremy+Lindsell shared a doc that might very well provide the template you're looking for. The Univeristy of Exeter dronelab research group (led by Karen Anderson) has developed a template for researchers using drones to help them meet CAA operating standards.

You can download the PDF here: 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1080/01431161.2017.1286059/suppl_file/tres_a_1286059_sm2155.pdf

And a Word version here:

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/suppl/10.1080/01431161.2017.1286059/suppl_file/tres_a_1286059_sm2164.docx

Thanks Jeremy!

Cheers, 
Stephanie

 

 

 

 

Jeremy Lindsell

20 February 2017 12:21pm

Hi @twhitten 

The British Model Flying Association provide a specialist insurance for drone operators who are not using them as a hobby nor for commercial purposes ("aerial work"). The category is termed "data, development and demonstration" and is recognised by UK Civil Aviation Authority as a legitimate mode of opeation that doesn't fit the current binary legislation of hobby or commercial. The insurance covers worldwide liability for operation. Most other drone insurance avilable assumes you are commercial, doing "aerial work" by CAA definition, and have a formal CAA licence.

BMFA are also a good source of information about current UK Gov and EU discussions on further legistlation re drones (registering all users for eg).

Best

Jeremy

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discussion

Using Parrot technology to save the Sequoias

John Probert

12 December 2016 4:56pm

Check out this cool story about how Parrot's technology is being used to protect forests http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/parrot-drones-sequoia-trees/

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Lot Amorós

5 January 2017 12:33am

Please note that they main use is Parrot sequoia multi spectral sensor, and not specifically Parrot drones.

I think they mainly use 3DR Solo drone for make the mapping of the sequoia.

Thomas Starnes

5 January 2017 10:05am

Thanks for the link, @jprobert ! Parrot Education Blog's own link also here for reference http://edu.parrot.com/blog/2016/12/06/parrot-pix4d-team-forest-canopy-biologists-study-giant-sequoias/

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discussion

Experience with DJI drones?

John Probert

23 March 2016 3:45pm

Does anyone have experience using DJI drones for monitoring? I am thinking about using a DJI drone for my Masters. Just wanted to get some thoughts on it.

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Tom Swinfield

13 April 2016 10:32am

Hi Jprobert.

I don't have experience with DJI drones but I do have quite a bit of experience with 3DR and drones in general.

What are you using the drones for? Get in touch if you'd like some advice.

Tom

Felipe Spina

27 November 2016 11:20pm

Hi Jprobert,

I have been trying to use my Phanton 3 proffessional together with Pix4Dmapper to trial out some forest mapping in Principe Island.

if you are interested check it out the interview I give to CNN Inside Africa about how drones and 3D mapping technologies are bringing our knowledge of Principe island’s forests into the 21st Century.

http://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2016/11/07/inside-africa-sao-tome-and-principe-biosphere-b.cnn

“How Sao Tome and Principe embraced ecotourism: Sao Tome and Principe is promoting small-scale, high-end tourism, preserving the island's ecosystems so they can be enjoyed for years to come. Source: CNN”


Also If you want know more about the use of drones for conservation check the full story at FFI website:

http://www.fauna-flora.org/putting-principe-back-on-the-map-with-3d-technology/

Regards,
Felipe Spina
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/felipe-spina-avino-91716193

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