{"id":36361,"date":"2015-04-27T13:15:50","date_gmt":"2015-04-27T20:15:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=36361"},"modified":"2015-05-11T14:09:13","modified_gmt":"2015-05-11T21:09:13","slug":"extra-time-means-more-flying-as-nau-researcher-awaits-one-of-a-kind-octocopter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/extra-time-means-more-flying-as-nau-researcher-awaits-one-of-a-kind-octocopter\/","title":{"rendered":"Extra time means more flying as NAU researcher awaits one-of-a-kind octocopter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>For Northern Arizona University ecologist and remote sensing scientist <strong>Teki Sankey<\/strong>, conducting research has usually meant interpreting coarse pixels from satellite images to draw conclusions about the vegetation covering landscapes worldwide.<\/p>\n<p>Now, by flying a custom-engineered octocopter packing two powerful sensors, Sankey will reap exquisite detail from forests, sand dunes and other natural features in Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>The unmanned aerial vehicle to be flown by Sankey and her graduate students will gather data.<\/p>\n<table border=\"0\" width=\"300\" cellspacing=\"5\" cellpadding=\"5\" align=\"right\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<table border=\"1\" width=\"100%\" cellspacing=\"0\" cellpadding=\"10\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #61003d;\"><strong>Waiting in the wings<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Northern Arizona University scientist <strong>Teki Sankey<\/strong> has identified a few \u201cready-to-go\u201d projects for when her octocopter unmanned aerial vehicle arrives, all of which are collaborations with other scientists on and off campus who are already sending out field crews to perform ground-based intensive measurements. Some of the projects include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A USGS study of soil erosion and sand dune migration on the Paria Plateau. Measuring dune volume by hand is difficult, so Sankey will fly the drone over the dunes for a three-dimensional measurement.<\/li>\n<li>Tree mapping in designated forest plots. Faculty and students from the NAU School of Forestry have been compiling field data, which can now be compared with information gathered from a UAV flyover.<\/li>\n<li>Grassland monitoring. The National Park Service at the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area is sending out researchers to measure plants in their plots. \u201cI\u2019m going to be pushing the envelope and measuring really small plants,\u201d Sankey said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>\u201cWith the satellite data you can only estimate what you are seeing, so if you have several different features lumped together into one pixel, you\u2019re going to have to label it based on the dominant cover,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cWith the high resolution drone data, I can do a lot more.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But the wait for that capability has proven to be a long one. While the octocopter is being assembled in Germany\u2014and its sensors and inertial navigation system being integrated by four vendors\u2014weeks have become months.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, Sankey has acquired a fixed-wing drone. She and graduate students <strong>Jonathon Donald<\/strong>, <strong>Dan Solazzo<\/strong>, and <strong>Jason McVay<\/strong> have been flying it to study forest restoration effects in the Centennial Forest area outside of Flagstaff. What they see there has implications for the Four Forest Restoration Initiative, at this point underway on a small scale.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re studying that area as an example of what will happen when <a href=\"http:\/\/nau.edu\/ERI\/Banner\/The-History-of-the-Four-Forest-Restoration-Initiative\/\">4FRI<\/a> begins operations over large acreages,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cThe idea is to see if thinning will improve the ground water budget because of the additional snow cover that will result from fewer trees.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That work along with satellite image analysis, funded by a Bureau of Reclamation grant, will become more fine-tuned once the octocopter arrives with its unique array of equipment.<\/p>\n<p>A hyperspectral sensor with 350 distinct color bands will allow Sankey to see \u201ca particular tree species, and under that I can see a particular grass species.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>With data from a lidar scanner, which produces three-dimensional images, Sankey can determine plant height. From a Ponderosa pine, she could correlate height to age, estimate canopy volume and calculate total biomass to conclude how much carbon is stored in a tree\u2014a number that could be of great value to forest managers.<\/p>\n<p>Effectively using all that data\u2014one hour of flight time will generate about 1 terabyte\u2014requires the capability to process it quickly. NAU\u2019s computing cluster, known as Monsoon, came online over the summer and has already proven to be invaluable.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne thing that I\u2019m very excited about is the high performance computing that NAU just got,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cSo far, my lab group is one of the biggest users because the data volume in my research is a big challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The $200,000 drone, funded by an allotment from the Arizona Board of Regents\u2019 Technology and Research Initiative Fund, had to be custom engineered to accommodate the two sensors and an advanced GPS system. Sankey said the only other low-altitude alternative has been to pay for images taken from an airplane, but obtaining just one quality image of a particular location could cost tens of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p>Yet regulations affecting flight and airspace still come into play. The rapidly expanding use of drones by researchers, and even citizens trying to obtain a spectacular souvenir photo, has the FAA scrambling to keep up. Sankey applied for a permit in April 2014 and finally received a certificate of authorization for the current project in February. So far, only one other applicant at NAU has been granted a permit to fly drones for research: <strong>Thomas Hoisch<\/strong>, associate dean for research in the College of Engineering, Forestry and Natural Sciences.<\/p>\n<p>Limited practice flights are allowed, however, and a heavily duct-taped trainer drone in Sankey\u2019s office is testament to the expertise required to operate one effectively. Flagstaff\u2019s challenging spring winds didn\u2019t help when Sankey and her students first began learning, although they were given some opportunities to practice in the calm confines of the Skydome.<\/p>\n<p>Once the octocopter arrives, it won\u2019t be ready for immediate action. Calibrating and validating the instruments it carries will take time, but Sankey has already received plenty of offers for projects on which to begin the process.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of people have heard about the drone and have come to me,\u201d Sankey said. \u201cI think the drone is really going to open doors for me for many collaborations on campus as well as off.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"search-results-excerpt-link\" href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/extra-time-means-more-flying-as-nau-researcher-awaits-one-of-a-kind-octocopter\/\">For Northern Arizona University ecologist and remote sensing scientist Teki Sankey, conducting research has usually meant interpreting coarse pixels from satellite images to draw conclusions about the vegetation covering landscapes worldwide. Now, by flying a custom-engineered octocopter packing two powerful sensors, Sankey will reap exquisite detail from forests, sand dunes and other natural features in&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":36367,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,11],"tags":[38,24,349,346,986,985,984],"class_list":["post-36361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors","category-research-academics","tag-nau","tag-northern-arizona-university","tag-remote-sensing","tag-teki-sankey","tag-thomas-hoisch","tag-uav","tag-unmanned-aerial-vehicle"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}