A feasibility study: California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection utilization of infrared technologies for wildland fire suppression and management

NASA's JPL has completed a feasibility study using infrared technologies for wildland fire suppression and management. The study surveyed user needs, examined available technologies, matched the user needs with technologies, and defined an integrated infrared wildland fire mapping concept system configuration. System component trade-offs were presented for evaluation in the concept system configuration. The economic benefits of using infrared technologies in fire suppression and management were examined. Follow-on concept system configuration development and implementation were proposed

A feasibility study: Forest Fire Advanced System Technology (FFAST)

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration/Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service completed a feasibility study that examined the potential uses of advanced technology in forest fires mapping and detection. The current and future (1990's) information needs in forest fire management were determined through interviews. Analysis shows that integrated information gathering and processing is needed. The emerging technologies that were surveyed and identified as possible candidates for use in an end to end system include ""push broom'' sensor arrays, automatic georeferencing, satellite communication links, near real or real time image processing, and data integration. Matching the user requirements and the technologies yielded a ""strawman'' system configuration. The feasibility study recommends and outlines the implementation of the next phase for this project, a two year, conceptual design phase to define a system that warrants continued development

Earth Observation – A Fundamental Input for Crisis Information Systems

Space-borne and airborne earth observation (EO) is a highly valuable source of spatio-temporal information promoting the ability for a rapid up-to-date assessment and (near-) real-time monitoring of natural or and man-made hazards and disasters. Such information has become indispensable in present-day disaster management activities. Thereby, EO based technologies have a role to play in each of the four phases of the disaster management cycle (i.e. mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery) with applications grouped into three main stages: - Pre-disaster (preparedness and mitigation): EO-based information extraction for assessing potential spatial distributions and severities of hazards as well as the vulnerability of a focus region for disaster risk evaluation and subsequent mitigation and preparedness activities. - Event crisis (response): Assessment and monitoring of regional extent and severities of the characteristics and impacts of a disaster to assist rapid crisis management. - Post-disaster (recovery): EO based information extraction to assist recovery activities. Within the PHAROS system a wide range of data products are used, which are varying in temporal, spatial and spectral resolution and coverage. The used sensor platforms comprise space-borne satellites and airborne systems, i.e. aircrafts as well as unmanned aerial systems (UAS)

SITHON: An Airborne Fire Detection System Compliant with Operational Tactical Requirements

In response to the urging need of fire managers for timely information on fire location and extent, the SITHON system was developed. SITHON is a fully digital thermal imaging system, integrating INS/GPS and a digital camera, designed to provide timely positioned and projected thermal images and video data streams rapidly integrated in the GIS operated by Crisis Control Centres. This article presents in detail the hardware and software components of SITHON, and demonstrates the first encouraging results of test flights over the Sithonia Peninsula in Northern Greece. It is envisaged that the SITHON system will be soon operated onboard various airborne platforms including fire brigade airplanes and helicopters as well as on UAV platforms owned and operated by the Greek Air Forces

Automatic plant disease diagnosis using mobile capture devices, applied on a wheat use case

Disease diagnosis based on the detection of early symptoms is a usual threshold taken into account for integrated pest management strategies. Early phytosanitary treatment minimizes yield losses and increases the efficacy and efficiency of the treatments. However, the appearance of new diseases associated to new resistant crop variants complicates their early identification delaying the application of the appropriate corrective actions. The use of image based automated identification systems can leverage early detection of diseases among farmers and technicians but they perform poorly under real field conditions using mobile devices. A novel image processing algorithm based on candidate hot-spot detection in combination with statistical inference methods is proposed to tackle disease identification in wild conditions. This work analyses the performance of early identification of three European endemic wheat diseases – septoria, rust and tan spot. The analysis was done using 7 mobile devices and more than 3500 images captured in two pilot sites in Spain and Germany during 2014, 2015 and 2016. Obtained results reveal AuC (Area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic –ROC– Curve) metrics higher than 0.80 for all the analyzed diseases on the pilot tests under real conditions

SPHERE: the exoplanet imager for the Very Large Telescope

Observations of circumstellar environments to look for the direct signal of exoplanets and the scattered light from disks has significant instrumental implications. In the past 15 years, major developments in adaptive optics, coronagraphy, optical manufacturing, wavefront sensing and data processing, together with a consistent global system analysis have enabled a new generation of high-contrast imagers and spectrographs on large ground-based telescopes with much better performance. One of the most productive is the Spectro-Polarimetic High contrast imager for Exoplanets REsearch (SPHERE) designed and built for the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. SPHERE includes an extreme adaptive optics system, a highly stable common path interface, several types of coronagraphs and three science instruments. Two of them, the Integral Field Spectrograph (IFS) and the Infra-Red Dual-band Imager and Spectrograph (IRDIS), are designed to efficiently cover the near-infrared (NIR) range in a single observation for efficient young planet search. The third one, ZIMPOL, is designed for visible (VIR) polarimetric observation to look for the reflected light of exoplanets and the light scattered by debris disks. This suite of three science instruments enables to study circumstellar environments at unprecedented angular resolution both in the visible and the near-infrared. In this work, we present the complete instrument and its on-sky performance after 4 years of operations at the VLT.Comment: Final version accepted for publication in A&

Looking for leakage or monitoring for public assurance?

Monitoring is a regulatory requirement for all carbon dioxide capture and geological storage (CCS) projects to verify containment of injected carbon dioxide (CO2) within a licensed geological storage complex. Carbon markets require CO2 storage to be verified. The public wants assurances CCS projects will not cause any harm to themselves, the environment or other natural resources. In the unlikely event that CO2 leaks from a storage complex, and into groundwater, to the surface, atmosphere or ocean, then monitoring methods will be required to locate, assess and quantify the leak, and to inform the community about the risks and impacts on health, safety and the environment. This paper considers strategies to improve the efficiency of monitoring the large surface area overlying onshore storage complexes. We provide a synthesis of findings from monitoring for CO2 leakage at geological storage sites both natural and engineered, and from monitoring controlled releases of CO2 at four shallow release facilities – ZERT (USA), Ginninderra (Australia), Ressacada (Brazil) and CO2 field lab (Norway)

Assessment of Nighttime Airborne Visual ASW Capability

NPS NRP Executive SummaryHaving an unmanned aircraft to investigate possible surface and underwater contacts ahead of a transiting strike group is considered a valuable and urgently needed tool to complement other available sensors to identify a threat (in the case of Anti-Submarine Warfare (AFW)) and/or avoid collision. The hypothesis evaluated in this study is whether modern commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) small unmanned aerial system (sUAS) equipped with a miniaturized COTS low-light night-vision (LLNV) imagers could ultimately provide this capability. Ideally, this study would benefit from using a highly efficient electric vertical takeoff and landing fixed-wing COTS sUAS which can be launched even from a small ship deck, including those operated by Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). This sUAS features extremely low noise emission, can stay in the area for 90+ minutes, carry wide range of high precision sensors and cover large areas. It can transmit telemetry at up to 7 km C2 range, and can potentially provide encoded live video stream at 5mb/s (using an encrypted broadband mesh IP network). However, many constrains associated with cyber security, ship operations, airspace may prevent from employing sUAS in this study. The envisioned alternative platform to be used to evaluate feasibility of the overall concept is a general aviation aircraft equipped to collect low-light imagery. The research questions this study may address are as follows: 1. What are the limits of the current airborne LLNV sensors for nighttime detection of underwater objects? 2. Would the use of spectral, spatial and temporal filters would enhance target signature enough to create image database and use it for identification purposes? 3. What are the atmospheric / water condition contributing to emission of light from living organisms? 4. Whether it is feasible to integrate a COTS wavelength-optimized LLNV sensor with a COTS sUAS to provide a viable nighttime detection capability for shallow-swimming biologics and objects? The study will present the overall concept, discuss integration issues and issues associated with operating in the National airspace, specifically within the Monterey Bay area at nighttime; followed by assessing shallow-swimming whale imagery coming out of a typical COTS LLNV sensor. Based on the quality, quantity and variety of the collected samples, this study may include creating an image database and artificial-intelligence based qualifier to distinguish different objects (species) based on their bioluminescent signature. It is expected to collaborate with several external organizations; involve SE, OC and MR students; and summarize all the findings in the final report.Naval Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC)U.S. Fleet Forces Command (USFF)This research is supported by funding from the Naval Postgraduate School, Naval Research Program (PE 0605853N/2098). https://nps.edu/nrpChief of Naval Operations (CNO)Approved for public release. Distribution is unlimited.

A new technique based on mini-UAS for estimating water and bottom radiance contributions in optically shallow waters

The mapping of nearshore bathymetry based on spaceborne radiometers is commonly used for QC ocean colour products in littoral waters. However, the accuracy of these estimates is relatively poor with respect to those derived from Lidar systems due in part to the large uncertainties of bottom depth retrievals caused by changes on bottom reflectivity. Here, we present a method based on mini unmanned aerial vehicles (UAS) images for discriminating bottom-reflected and water radiance components by taking advantage of shadows created by different structures sitting on the bottom boundary. Aerial surveys were done with a drone Draganfly X4P during October 1 2013 in optically shallow waters of the Saint Lawrence Estuary, and during low tide. Colour images with a spatial resolution of 3 mm were obtained with an Olympus EPM-1 camera at 10 m height. Preliminary results showed an increase of the relative difference between bright and dark pixels (dP) toward the red wavelengths of the camera's receiver. This is suggesting that dP values can be potentially used as a quantitative proxy of bottom reflectivity after removing artefacts related to Fresnel reflection and bottom adjacency effects.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version