Unmanned Systems Technology 014 | Quantum Tron | Radio links and telemetry | Unmanned Aerial Vehicles | Protonex fuel cell | Ancillary systems | AUVSI 2017 Show report

This xCraft UAV has a high-efficiency wing that enables it to take off vertically and transition to forward flight (Courtesy of xCraft) 44 Insight | UAVs hyperspectral imaging for agricultural UAVs. It has teamed up with Corning to use the latter’s microHSI 410-Shark hyperspectral camera on its fixed-wing UAV. The camera handles the data on board, producing calibrated, geo- referenced hypercubes, which allows high-resolution maps to be created that are not possible with visible-light cameras. The potential of these remote sensing capabilities allows new spectral libraries to be created that can identify different types of vegetation as well as the condition of the plants. That opens up the ability to generate extremely tailored applications. Monitoring crops using unmanned systems is one thing; actually planting them by UAV is quite another. However, BioCarbon Engineering has been working with VulcanUAV to develop a vehicle that can actually plant seeds from a height, which can only be done with a rotary craft. The idea is to fire pre-germinated seeds in biodegradable nutrition pods directly into the ground from the air, to plant a billion trees a year by replacing the slow and difficult manual planting methods currently in use. There is a UN goal to restore 350 million hectares of degraded and deforested land around the world by 2030, which is estimated to require up to 300 billion trees to be planted. “Our technology is making it easier for ecosystem restoration groups, mining companies and forestry groups – both private and public – to plant the trees, where they need them, at a fraction of the time and cost,” says BioCarbon Engineering’s founder, ex-NASA engineer Lauren Fletcher. The first prototype has a quadrotor UAV fitted with an air-powered seed gun powerful enough to penetrate ground vegetation and surface soil, getting the seed directly into the ground. Maximum flight time is around 40 minutes, and the next stage of the project is to scale up the size of the UAV and its endurance. Inspection Quantum Light Metrology (QLM), a start- up in Bristol in the UK, is developing a sensor that can detect methane leaks that is light enough to mount on a UAV and operate from a distance of 50 m at speeds of 50 kph. That is said to June/July 2017 | Unmanned Systems Technology BioCarbon Engineering is using a UAV with an airgun to fire seeds into the ground (Courtesy of VulcanUAV