推荐杏吧原创

推荐杏吧原创 the UAS Federation

Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) represent an evolving and important set of tools for Earth and environmental science and engineering. While low-cost UAS can be acquired and operated by individual PIs for simple surveying or photography, very high-resolution observation using advanced sensors is often out of the reach for most researchers. In response, five National Science Foundation (NSF) supported Earth Science Instrument Facilities (IF: NCALM, EarthScope, NHERI-RAPID, OpenTopography and CTEMPS) support some level of UAS instrumentation, data-related activities, or training. To date, however, these efforts have been largely independent and, in many cases, not clearly understood by our respective science and engineering communities.

Between the five IFs, we have over 35 aircraft (6 heavy lift airframes, 7 medium lift and at least 23 light duty airframes along with a broad range of remote sensing systems (lidar, airborne magnetics, hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal and albedo, as well as numerous cameras with RGB capacity) and over 140 archived UAS datasets. Taken as a whole, we have an extensive and well-maintained fleet of aircraft, sensors, and software at the cutting edge of research-grade UAS remote sensing, and where there is redundancy, it can provide back-up in case of overbooking or sensor failure.

Beginning in 2023, these facilities have joined together to develop a Federation of UAS Instrument Facilities with capabilities to support UAS remote sensing for earth sciences and engineering. The consortium is designed to optimize the collective capabilities of the IFs, thus guiding researchers to appropriate technical capabilities to enable their science. We are developing a common UAS, Sensor and Data portal to provide users with a clear path to UAS platforms, sensors, FAIR data archiving resources, and expertise. More information, contacts and instrument requests will be available through our website in early 2024.

Members of the Federation

The founding members of the UAS Federation are CTEMPs, NCALM, EarthScope Consortium, OpenTopography and NHERI-RAPID.