No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
Biology's drones: New and improved
Abstract
In the News & Analysis story “Drones flying high as new tool for field biologists” (2 May, p. [459][1]), R. Schiffman presents a new useful application of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the field of monitoring wildlife, but the drones still have some limitations. The quadrotor UAVs that they
... This allows them to be deployed in difficult conditions such as under the forest canopy or within caves (e.g. Luo et al. 2014), which would not be possible with a fixed wing device. Rotary wing drones have a high power demand for their wings because they cannot glide, meaning that they can usually only be flown for short distances and for less than 1 h (Watts et al. 2012). ...
... Questions have been raised about whether it is ethically acceptable to monitor people from the air without their knowledge, and at what point this might become an unacceptable infringement of privacy or other human rights, such as freedom of association (see Finn and Wright 2012 for a detailed review). A particular concern with drones is that they can now be small and subtle enough (Luo et al. 2014) to get into spaces that might otherwise be thought of as private. Privacy issues with surveillance technology are not limited to drones-they can also be relevant with high-resolution satellite imagery or traditional aerial photography. ...
Unmanned aerial vehicles, or 'drones', appear to offer a flexible, accurate and affordable solution to some of the technical challenges of nature conservation monitoring and law enforcement. However, little attention has been given to their possible social impacts. In this paper, I review the possible social impacts of using drones for conservation, including on safety, privacy, psychological wellbeing, data security and the wider understanding of conservation problems. I argue that negative social impacts are probable under some circumstances and should be of concern for conservation for two reasons: (1) because conservation should follow good ethical practice; and (2) because negative social impacts could undermine conservation effectiveness in the long term. The paper concludes with a call for empirical research to establish whether the identified social risks of drones occur in reality and how they could be mitigated, and for self-regulation of drone use by the conservation sector to ensure good ethical practice and minimise the risk of unintended consequences.
... They can take off land vertically, so in a small area in the field they can be launched. This allows them to be deployed in difficult conditions such as vast grasslands with difficult terrain (Luo et al., 2014). They can be easily maneuvered across the field and can hover over problem areas. ...
Land resource of India is though constrained to support its large livestock numbers, but vast availability of common lands provides enormous possibility to develop them into grasslands. W ith advent of drones, a self propelled airborne device with no on-board pilot, possibilties to develop these common lands have opened up. India has 51.598 million ha of common land which has the potential to produce estimated 22.159 million tons dry matter. However, grass seeds are extremely small, light in weight, many species have awn like structure and their availability are some of the challenges to use drone for sowing grass seeds. A pilot work was taken up in collaborative mode successfully resulted in development and testing of two types of seed sowing devices integrated with quad-copter agricultural drone. Seeds of grazing guinea, Stylosanthes hamata and Cenchrus ciliaris were successfully sown using a drone fitted with seed sowing device in 2 days to cover 50 acre land in Hessarghtta farm in September 2021 with very good germination. This small attempt maximises the possibility of leveraging aerial seed sowing technology for grassland development.
... Ainsi, les drones ont fait leur apparition (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle en anglais ou UAV) ces dernières années dans le domaine de la recherche agronomique et ils ont su prouver leur efficacité en matière de phénotypage (Luo et al. 2014;Marris 2013 (Korte and Farlow 2013). Ainsi, l'apport des marqueurs moléculaires est incontestable dans l'étude de l'hérédité de ces caractères quantitatifs puisqu'ils donnent l'accès à une multitude d'informations concernant le génome. ...
Les présents travaux réalisés sur le noyer ont consisté en l’exploitation des riches ressources génétiques disponibles à l’INRAE de Nouvelle-Aquitaine-Bordeaux, afin d’apporter les outils qui pourront être utilisés dans un nouveau programme de création variétale mené par le CTIFL, centre opérationnel de Lanxade. En effet, au regard du développement économique important de la noix, le choix variétal en France ne semble pas suffisant pour répondre aux futures nouvelles contraintes telles que la concurrence mondiale et le changement climatique. Le travail de prospection que l’on doit principalement à l’équipe d’Éric Germain a permis de rassembler sur l’UEA de Toulenne la majeure partie des espèces du genre Juglans et de nombreuses accessions de noyer cultivé, Juglans regia L. L’exploitation de ses archives accumulées pendant 30 ans a permis de rendre publiques d’importantes données chronologiques de phénotypage concernant cette collection. Ces données ont permis de montrer l’avancée de la phénologie des deux variétés témoins ‘Lara’ and ‘Franquette’, en lien avec le changement climatique. Grâce à un ensemble de 13 marqueurs SSR, des allèles spécifiques aux espèces Juglans ont été identifiés et la structure de la collection a été étudiée. Cette structure montre deux sous-groupes principaux, l’un comprenant des accessions d’Europe de l’est et d’Asie et l’autre, d’Europe de l’ouest et des Etat-Unis. Aussi, une core collection a été définie pour réaliser des études de GWAS sur les principaux caractères d’intérêt agronomique, de la fleur au fruit, grâce à l’utilisation d’une puce de 600 000 SNP mise au point par l’Université de Davis en Californie. Des associations entre des SNP et plusieurs caractères liés à la phénologie ont été mises en évidence, grâce aux données des archives et à celles nouvellement acquises. Un SNP fortement lié à la date de débourrement des feuilles et fleurs femelles a été identifié sur le chromosome 1 et co-localise avec un QTL détecté en parallèle sur une descendance F1. Un marqueur de type KASP a été validé avec du matériel végétal de l’Université de Davis. D’autres associations ont également été identifiées pour le type de dichogamie et de fructification, caractère intervenant directement sur le rendement, et ont mené à la définition de gènes candidats. D’autres analyses GWAS ont été conduites sur les caractères liés au fruit, comme la taille de la noix, son poids, le rendement au cassage et la force nécessaire pour rompre la coque. En parallèle, des méthodes utilisant des techniques de phénotypage robustes ont été développées, comme l’utilisation de la microtomographie à rayons X pour mesurer tous les caractères morphologiques, sans casser la noix. Enfin, un travail de comparaison de l’efficacité des deux types de marqueurs utilisés dans ces travaux, SSR et SNP, a été mené. Les résultats montrent que les 13 marqueurs SSR donnent des résultats similaires à plusieurs milliers de SNP en ce qui concerne les étapes de détermination de structure et de construction de core collections, incontournables dans le management des ressources génétiques. A terme, les résultats de ces travaux permettront d’initier une sélection assistée par marqueurs pour la création de nouvelles variétés, dans le cadre d’un nouveau programme d’amélioration qui sera mené par le CTIFL. Ces nouvelles variétés seront aptes à répondre aux critères recherchés dans les années à venir, prenant en compte le changement climatique.
... Lately, UAV platform widely used for precision agriculture [7], [8]. UAV able to provide real time data at large area coverage using shorter time. ...
Currently, one of the remote sensing platform that adequatly been used is Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) which suitable in monitoring and mapping for agriculture sector at large area payload by compact sensor. Thus, this study is deploy the UAV compact sensor to identify the characteristics of rubber tree clone leaf diseases based on two groups of spectral wavelength which is visible (RGB: 0.4 ?m ? 0.7 ?m) and near infrared (NIR: 0.7?m ? 2.0 ?m), respectively. Spectral obtained using UAV platform is then to be validated with ground observation handheld spectroradiometer. Eight types of rubber tree clones leaf at three different conditions (healty, unhealty and severe) were randomly selected within the 9.4 hectare Experimental Rubber Plot, Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia (RRIM), Kota Tinggi, Johor whereby consist RRIM 2000 series, RRIM 3000 series and PB series, respectively. As a result, this study has found that the spectral trend based on UAV compact sensor from eight different types of rubber tree clones leaf shows the similarity to the general basic vegetation spectral in transition from blue to NIR spectral. However, referring to spectral obtained from handheld spectroradiometer there is no drastically changes of spectral in visible region but drastically increase in NIR region. Thus, this study has conclude that the spectral signature characteristics for healthy, unhealthy and severe for leaf diseases from every single rubber tree clones can be identified obviously in NIR region using UAV compact sensor.
... Commonly cited advantages of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-based remote sensing technology (Greatwood et al. 2017; Thomas et al. 2017) are low cost, safety, timeliness, and flexibility in mission design (Luo et al. 2014;Tang and Shao 2015;Anderson 2016). Notable limitations include a general lack of UAV and remote sensing expertise and trained personnel, and restrictive, complex or uncertain regulatory environments (McGwire et al. 2013;Paneque-Gálvez et al. 2014;Baillie 2015;Zahawi et al. 2015). ...
Forest inventory, monitoring, and assessment requires accurate tree species identification and mapping. Recent experiences with multispectral data from small fixed-wing and rotary blade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) suggest a role for this technology in the emerging paradigm of enhanced forest inventory (EFI). In this paper, pixel-based and object-based image analysis (OBIA) methods were compared in UAV-based tree species classification of nine commercial tree species in mature eastern Ontario mixedwood forests. Unsupervised clustering and supervised classification of tree crown pixels yielded approximately 50%–60% classification accuracy overall; OBIA with image segmentation to delineate tree crowns and machine learning yielded up to 80% classification accuracy overall. Spectral response patterns and tree crown shape and geometric differences were interpreted in context of their ability to separate tree species of interest with these classification methods. Accuracy assessment was based on field-based forest inventory tree species identification. The paper provides a brief summary of future research issues that will influence the growth of this geomatics innovation in forest tree species classification and forest inventory.
... Classification of forest tree species using multispectral sensors acquired from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is an increasingly viable forestry application (Torresan et al. 2017;Goodbody et al. 2017). Typically, the advantages of UAVs in comparison to manned airborne remote sensing are cited as safety, lower cost, convenience, high-intensity data collection, and greater flexibility in flight planning (Luo, Li, and Dai 2014). Workflows for UAV data collection and geometric and radiometric processing are increasingly robust (Laliberte et al. 2010) although digital image analysis remains a challenge (Pajares 2015). ...
Object-based image analysis and machine-learning classification were applied to multispectral camera array data acquired by a small rotating blade unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) over a hardwood forest in eastern Ontario. White birch, aspen, and two species of maple were surveyed in the field. Images were segmented and the resulting objects were visually confirmed to correspond with the sampled tree crowns. Following the application of machine-learning classification using the Random Forest algorithm, an independent validation sample of 23 tree crowns was, overall, approximately 78% correct. Aspen and birch were the most distinct species; the two maples appeared to be confused with each other and with immature trees and understory shrubs. Classification accuracy, commission errors, and variable importance were interpreted to be consistent with experience documented in aerial photointerpretation selection and elimination keys for northern hardwoods. Additional tests are recommended to more fully analyse the accuracy of deciduous tree species classification using digital analysis of high spatial resolution multispectral UAV imagery.
... These applications have employed robust methods of UAV multispectral image processing, including radiometric calibration (von Beuren et al. 2015), object-based segmentation (Laliberte and Rango 2009;Peña et al. 2013;Qin 2014;Li et al. 2016), and the use of versatile non-parametric tools, such as machine learning algorithms (Whitehead and Hugenholtz 2014). A number of recent reviews (Morris 2013;Luo, Li, and Dai 2014;Pajares 2015) and comparisons (von Bueren et al. 2015) have highlighted the need more operational examples in diverse environments to demonstrate the use of different types of multispectral imagery acquired by different UAV platforms to increase the use and potential of this technology in land cover and vegetation inventory, assessment and monitoring procedures. ...
The use of multispectral cameras deployed on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in land cover and vegetation mapping applications continues to improve and receive increasing recognition and adoption by resource management and forest survey practitioners. Comparisons of different camera data and platform performance characteristics are an important contribution in understanding the role and operational capability of this technology. In this article, object-based classification accuracies for different cover types and vegetation species of interest in central Ontario were examined using data from three UAV-based multispectral cameras. Five land-cover classes (forest, shrub, herbaceous, bare soil, and built-up) were determined to be up to 95% correct overall with calibrated multispectral Parrot Sequoia digital camera data compared to independent field observations. The levels of classification accuracy decreased approximately 10–15% when spectrally less capable consumer-grade RGB sensors were used. Multispectral Parrot Sequoia classification accuracy was approximately 89% when more detailed vegetation classes, including individual deciduous tree species, shrub communities and agricultural crops, were analysed. Additional work is suggested in the use of such UAV multispectral and point cloud data in ash tree discrimination to support emerald ash borer infestation detection and management, and in analysis of functional and structural vegetation characteristics (e.g. leaf area index).
... Currently, drones became prominent in applied and theoretical (scientific) conservation biology (Anderson and Gaston 2013;Chabot and Bird 2013;Schiffman 2014). Improved mechanic flight systems with new multispectral high resolution cameras has led to an increase of the application of unmanned aerial vehicles for land cover (change) detection and biodiversity assessments (Wich and Koh 2012;Luo et al. 2014;Arts et al. 2015;Chabot and Bird 2015;Maffey et al. 2015). ...
Context
Evidence-based nature conservation focuses on ecological facts and the incorporation of knowledge on the ecology of species, including its entire life cycle. In butterflies, imagos and its larvae often demand specific and diverging micro-habitat structures and resources. In consequence, ecological requirements of the imaginal and pre-imaginal stage have to be taken into consideration to conduct effective conservation management.
Objective
Here we analyse ecological pre-requisites of imagos and larvae for two lycaenid butterfly species, the common blue Polyommatus icarus and the adonis blue Polyommatus bellargus. Both butterfly species occur in calcareous grasslands and mainly depend on two plant species at our study site, the horseshoe vetch Hippocrepis comosa and bird’s-foot trefoil Lotus corniculatus. These plant species serve as nectar sources and larval host plants for the two butterfly species.
Methods
First, we assessed the occurrence of imagines and larvae of the two butterfly species and recorded various micro-habitat characteristics, like the number of flower buds of the two main host plants, the surrounding vegetation height, percentage of bare soil, availability of shadow, and the distance to and geographic direction of thickets at respective sites. In a second step we took high resolution aerial pictures from our study area using an unmanned aerial vehicle (drone). Based on these aerial pictures and the information on the larvae´s habitat preference from our field observations, we trained a habitat suitability model to identify micro-habitat structures suitable for larvae of the two butterfly species.
Results
We found that abundance of imagos is positively correlated with flower bud density of the two host plants. Low vegetation height and high proportion of bare soil (but not flower bud density) positively influence egg oviposition. The calculated habitat suitability models predict the occurrence of high quality larval habitats with high prediction power (AUC = 0.72).
Conclusions
This combined data set consisting of field observations, high resolution aerial pictures taken from an unmanned aerial vehicle, and models underline that (1) species with complex life cycles may request more than one habitat niche, depending its stage of development, and (2) high resolution aerial pictures taken from drones provide valuable background data to generate habitat suitability models—even on a micro scale but covering larger parts of a landscape.
... Although much more versatile than fixed-wing drones due to their capability to remain stationary (see below), they have very limited flight times. Although literature shows flight times up to or over 25 minutes and payloads up to 2 kg (Paneque-Gálvez et al., 2014), flight times actually shrink to 15 minutes with moderate payloads (see also Luo et al., 2014). In addition, these first-generation drones are only capable of taking off and flying under very stable anticyclone meteorological conditions, with no wind and no turbulences. ...
... In sensitive ecosystems, they avoid having to walk the terrain, leading to severe damage, with footprints or ground vehicle tracks. Biologists have an excellent tool for many of their activities, where specific designs of UAVs have been considered (Schiffman, 2014;Humle, 2014;Luo, 2014). Kite aerial photography has been used in intertidal ecosystems for mapping of plants (micro-and macro-algae) and animals (gastropods) assemblag- es at different spatial and temporal scales (Bryson et al., 2013). ...
Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) is presently in continuous development at a rapid pace. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or more extensively Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are platforms considered under the RPAs paradigm. Simultaneously, the development of sensors and instruments to be installed onboard such platforms is growing exponentially. These two factors together have led to the increasing use of these platforms and sensors for remote sensing applications with new potential. Thus, the overall goal of this paper is to provide a panoramic overview about the current status of remote sensing applications based on unmanned aerial platforms equipped with a set of specific sensors and instruments. First, some examples of typical platforms used in remote sensing are provided. Second, a description of sensors and technologies is explored which are onboard instruments specifically intended to capture data for remote sensing applications. Third, multi-UAVs in collaboration, coordination, and cooperation in remote sensing are considered. Finally, a collection of applications in several areas are proposed, where the combination of unmanned platforms and sensors, together with methods, algorithms, and procedures provide the overview in very different remote sensing applications. This paper presents an overview of different areas, each independent from the others, so that the reader does not need to read the full paper when a specific application is of interest.
... In recent years, a new aerial platform has joined the traditional ones: the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or drones [6,7]. Several investigations [8] have demonstrated the advantages of the UAVs in comparison to airborne or satellite missions regarding its low cost and greater flexibility in flight scheduling [9], which make UAV technology a proper tool for farmers and researchers to monitor crops at the field scale [10]. ...
The geometric features of agricultural trees such as canopy area, tree height and crown volume provide useful information about plantation status and crop production. However, these variables are mostly estimated after a time-consuming and hard field work and applying equations that treat the trees as geometric solids, which produce inconsistent results. As an alternative, this work presents an innovative procedure for computing the 3-dimensional geometric features of individual trees and tree-rows by applying two consecutive phases: 1) generation of Digital Surface Models with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology and 2) use of object-based image analysis techniques. Our UAV-based procedure produced successful results both in single-tree and in tree-row plantations, reporting up to 97% accuracy on area quantification and minimal deviations compared to in-field estimations of tree heights and crown volumes. The maps generated could be used to understand the linkages between tree grown and field-related factors or to optimize crop management operations in the context of precision agriculture with relevant agro-environmental implications.
To further increase the adaptability and versatility of aerial vehicles, this paper presents a novel deployable quad-rotor enabled aerial gripper without integrating extra manipulators. In specific, the quad-rotor can morph/deploy in flight by actuating a simple but effective articulated rigid-elements based morphing mechanism, and the function of the gripper can be simultaneously achieved by following the extension/contraction of the deployable articulated mechanism. The proposed mechanism not only endows the quad-rotor with mechanical advantages such as high stiffness but also forms a morph-driven aerial gripper, which helps materialize a novel, compact yet efficient, and dual functional aerial vehicle. In addition, in order to control the morphing quad-rotor system, a morph-independent dynamic model and the corresponding control strategy are developed and presented. Extensive simulations and experiments on the proposed in-flight morphing mechanism and grasping functions of the gripper are performed. The results verify the effectiveness of the deployment/morphing mechanism and simultaneously enabled grasping functions, including handling different objects with various sizes, shapes, and textures. The results also validate that our deployment/morphing mechanism has less effect on flight behavior, but does own advantages of multi-maneuverability and morphological adaptation.
Unmanned aerial vehicles capable of hazardous terrain landing are desirable for intelligence collection. A crucial point is the landing gears autonomous adaptation to the rough surface, which is especially difficult in unknown and constrained environment. To enable this capability, this paper proposes a novel biomimetic system that ascertains terrain appearances like large obstacles and precipitous slope using a monocular camera and adjusts the mechatronics landing structure according to the terrain. A dynamic model including the ground effect is provided and a time-to-contact theory based backstepping nonlinear controller is designed to reject uncertainty disturbances as well as implement a bio-inspired guidance strategy for soft landing in hazardous terrain. The mechatronic architecture and cascade control structure using custom-built unmanned air vehicle platform are presented. Experimental results and video footage demonstrate this biomimetic approach efficiently controls a vehicle successfully landing in unknown and unstructured constrained environment.
Micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (MAVs) have been used in a wide range of applications [1, 2, 3]. However, there are few papers addressing high-speed grasping and transportation of pay-loads using MAVs. Drawing inspiration from aerial hunting by birds of prey, we design and equip a quadrotor MAV with an actuated appendage enabling grasping and object retrieval at high speeds. We develop a nonlinear dynamic model of the system, demonstrate that the system is differentially flat, plan dynamic trajectories using the flatness property, and present experimental results with pick-up velocities at 2 m/s (6 body lengths / second) and 3 m/s (9 body lengths / second). Finally, the experimental results are compared with observations derived from video footage of a bald eagle swooping down and snatching a fish out of water.
Flying robots capable of perch-and-stare are desirable for reconnaissance missions. Inspired by an adaptation that enables songbirds to sleep in trees without active muscle control, the research presented herein details the design for a passive mechanism that enables a rotorcraft to perch reminiscent of a bird perching on a tree branch. Perching is accomplished through the integration of a compliant, underactuated gripping foot and a collapsing leg mechanism that converts rotorcraft weight into tendon tension in order to passively actuate the foot. Analysis of mechanism behavior is presented, and stability tests were performed to characterize the ability of the system to reject disturbances. The results indicate that it is possible to passively perch a rotorcraft on multiple surfaces and support reasonable environmental disturbances. The analysis in this paper can enable passive perching design optimization in vertical take-off and landing systems.
- R Hilborn
R. Hilborn et al., Science 314, 1266 (2006).
- W M Adams
- J Hutton
W. M. Adams, J. Hutton, Conserv. Soc. 5, 147 (2007).
- E B Barbier
E. B. Barbier et al., Nature 505, 475 (2014).
- C Doyle
C. Doyle et al., IEEE/ASME Trans. Mechatronics 18, 506
(2013).