Applications of low-cost radio-controlled airplanes to environmental restoration at Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Abstract

The US DOE is endeavoring to clean up contamination created by the disposal of chemical and nuclear waste on the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR), Tennessee, with an emphasis on minimizing off-site migration of contaminated surface and ground water. The task is complicated by inadequate disposal records and by the complexity of the local geology. Remote sensing data, including aerial photography and geophysics, have played an important role in the ORR site characterization. Are there advantages to collecting remote sensing data using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV`s)? In this paper, I will discuss the applications of UAV`s being explored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) under the sponsorship of the Department of Energy`s Office of Science and technology. These applications are : aerial photography, magnetic mapping, and Very Low Frequency (VLF) electromagnetic mapping