Emergency services and environmental monitoring can be significantly improved by exploiting the latest advancement in drone technology, which includes the use of radar on drones. It is well known that drones offer significant advantages in environmental monitoring by providing efficient, cost-effective, and detailed data collection.
Until recent years most drones were equipped only with advanced optical multispectral sensors or lidar. However, some type of measurements cannot be accessed by visible or thermal light. In the past few years, a hand full of companies have designed drones equipped with radars. Radar allows to retrieve biophysical properties that are not accessible with other wavelengths, as for soil moisture, water table depth. Additionally due to their capability to partially penetrate the ground they can produce subsurface images.
We want to using drone radar to monitor the environmental, for improved emergency action and conservation.
We are planning to have a series of experiments with the SurveyAR radar drone. Examples of three specific scenarios are in the following. However, we want to add that SurveyAR will interface with stakeholders like SEPA or other land owners to come with more pressing applications if appropriate:
- Soil moisture: we will be collecting multi frequency and multi baseline images to retrieve soil moisture in area of interest. Special attention will be in monitoring the capability to detect leaks from water supply and to use soil moisture to predict flooding.
- Water table in peatland: we will take measurements over Flanders Moss and other bogs in the Forth catchment to monitor water table depth and therefore assess bog health.
- Embankments: the capability of the radar to monitor soil moisture and obtain subsurface images (please read on ground penetration radars for more info) will allow to detect fault points in embankments mostly caused by water flow. This is of great interest to the transport industry. SurveyAR has already links on areas that are of interest for monitoring.
The project will capitalise on Scotland’s International Environment Centre and the Hydro Nation Chair. It will build on a rich research base built using multi-million pound grants from funders including UKRI, ESA, UKSA and EC (e.g. GloboLake, Lake CCI, SMART, MOT4Rivers, DANUBIUS-RI, WaterFoRCE, Danube4All). Links with industry and stakeholders are already established through these projects and project partners.
