We use drones for remote sensing in the context of environmental and agricultural research. drones are a good tool for various legal civilian applications. The use of this technology facilitates the access to environmental data to communities in rural and remote areas as well as for environmental organizations and groups involved in scientific research. Drones can be used in forest ecology, water management, planning and monitoring of sustainable agriculture, environmental planning and projects in the context of climate change (quantification of carbon sequestration). They are also suitable for fast initial damage surveys in disaster situations such as forest fires, hurricanes and floods......

Ecologists require spatially explicit data to relate structure to function. To date, heavy reliance has been placed on obtaining such data from remote-sensing instruments mounted on spacecraft or manned aircraft, although the spatial and temporal resolutions of the data are often not suited to local-scale ecological investigations. Recent technological innovations have led to an upsurge in the availability of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) – aircraft remotely operated from the ground – and there are now many lightweight UAVs on offer at reasonable costs. Flying low and slow, UAVs offer ecologists new opportunities for scale-appropriate measurements of ecological phenomena. Equipped with capable sensors, UAVs can deliver fine spatial resolution data at temporal resolutions defined by the end user. Recent innovations in UAV platform design have been accompanied by improvements in navigation and the miniaturization of measurement technologies, allowing the study of individual organis

Data gathered through community-based forest monitoring (CBFM) programs may be as accurate as those gathered by professional scientists, but acquired at a much lower cost and capable of providing more detailed data about the occurrence, extent and drivers of forest loss, degradation and regrowth at the community scale. In addition, CBFM enables greater survey repeatability. Therefore, CBFM should be a fundamental component of national forest monitoring systems and programs to measure, report and verify (MRV) REDD+ activities. To contribute to the development of more effective approaches to CBFM, in this paper we assess: (1) the feasibility of using small, low-cost drones (i.e., remotely piloted aerial vehicles) in CBFM programs; (2) their potential advantages and disadvantages for communities, partner organizations and forest data end-users; and (3) to what extent their utilization, coupled with ground surveys and local ecological knowledge, would improve tropical forest monitoring.

ETH-Assistenzprofessor Lian Pin Koh hat eine autonome Drohne gebaut, die sich für Naturschutzzwecke einsetzen lässt, wie etwa für die Überwachung des Regenwaldes. Von den ersten Resultaten der Aufklärungsflüge ist er begeistert.

Here, we describe the development and use of an inexpensive (<$2,000) unmanned aerial vehicle for surveying and mapping forests and biodiversity (referred to as ‘Conservation Drone’ hereafter). Our prototype drone is able to fly pre-programmed missions autonomously for a total flight time of ~25 minutes and over a distance of ~15 km.

El Skywalker es una sofisticada plataforma de fenotipado aéreo constituida por un avión teledirigido dotado de un avanzado sistema de vuelo que no requiere conocimientos previos en aeromodelismo. Bajo las alas, se ha instalado una cámara multiespectral (operativa en el espectro visible y el infrarrojo cercano) para evaluar el crecimiento de las plantas, y una cámara térmica (infrarrojo lejano) para evaluar la temperatura y el estado hídrico del cultivo. Este ingenio aeronáutico permitirá valorar un gran número de características de las variedades de maíz cultivado en las parcelas analizadas y seleccionar las mejor adaptadas a las condiciones ambientales.

Skywalker is a complex aerial phenotyping platform, a remote-controlled plane provided with an advance flight system which do not require previous knowledge of aeromodelism. Spectral (visible and near infrared) reflectance and thermal imagery cameras were fitted to the wings; they allow evaluating crops’ growth, temperature and available soil water of large numbers of maize varieties in only a few minutes. This data will be used to improve the efficiency of maize breeding and speed up the development of drought and low nitrogen tolerant maize varieties for some of the poorest farmers in the world.

This article describes a specific image quality problem using an UAV and the commercially available multispectral camera Tetracam ADC Lite. The tests were carried out with commercially available UAV Multirotor MR-X 8 performed under normal use and conditions. The ADC Lite shows a remarkable rolling shutter effect caused by the movement and vibrations of the UAV and a slow readout speed of the sensor.

Remote sensing tools are increasingly being used to survey forest structure. Most current methods rely on GPS signals, which are available in above-canopy surveys or in below-canopy surveys of open forests, but may be absent in below-canopy environments of dense forests. We trialled a technology that facilitates mobile surveys in GPS-denied below-canopy forest environments. The platform consists of a battery-powered UAV mounted with a LiDAR. The use of UAV-mounted LiDAR for below-canopy GPS-denied forest surveys has several current limitations, but appears to be a promising technology.

Posted by Krzysztof Bosak on March 22, 2013 on DIY DRONES: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/secrets-of-photomapping-by-krzysztof-bosak-has-heen-brought-up-to

Am Beispiel der Deponie Teuftal bei Bern werden Einsatzmöglichkeiten und Leistungspotential der digitalen Photogrammetrie in Kombination mit einer autonomen Flächenflügel-Mini-Drohne untersucht.