Fighting Wildfires With Robotic Planes

By Roland Piquepaille

The Bats from the MLB Company are man-portable unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) systems which can deliver high quality video imagery for a reasonable price of about $42K. They've been on the market for a while, but now, NASA and Air Force teams are testing them as flocks of robots aircrafts for monitoring wildfires, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. These planes have a wingspan of 5 feet, weigh only 15 pounds, and can fly for up to six hours. The best thing is that they can fly during nights, thus avoiding any potential conflicts with other aircrafts -- such as air tankers dropping fire retardant. Still, they are awaiting a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval before being allowed to fly around passenger-carrying aircrafts. But read more...

Here are the opening paragraphs from the San Diego Union-Tribune article.

Using the sort of small robotic aircraft flown by the military in Iraq, a NASA research team has developed techniques for launching a fleet of unmanned aircraft like a flock of birds to monitor fast-moving wildfires.

Flight tests of the concept were first conducted almost a year ago by researchers at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, near Edwards Air Force Base. It was showcased again last month in flight demonstrations for state and federal fire officials at Moffett Field in the Bay Area.

Below is a photo of the MLB Bat UAV mounted on a SUV on NASA's Moffett Field (Credit: MLB Company).

And the screenshot below gives you an idea about how the unmanned plane is controlled from the ground (Credit: MLB Company).

Now, let's return to the innovations from NASA.

Among the innovations used by the NASA researchers was flight control software that enables multiple UAVs to simulate the random-but-choreographed aerial ballet of a flock of birds.

The NASA researchers envision sending two or three small UAVs to circle about 1,500 feet above a wildfire, transmitting video images to firefighters on the ground. Using unmanned planes instead of piloted spotter aircraft would provide a continuous "eye in the sky" for eight hours or more.

Of course, the idea of having these UAVs circling around other planes in dangerous zones raising is some concerns, but at least these UAVs can fly during nights.

But the Associated Press reports that theses UAVs would provide some welcome help in "High-tech spy planes might fight fires."

After experimental flights of three unmanned aerial vehicles this summer, the U.S. Forest Service will launch the first real-life deployment next spring. The plan calls for planes to traverse a dozen Western states, mapping real forest fires 24 hours a day.

"Unmanned aircraft have the capability to do what we call the 3-D missions -- the dull, dark and dangerous missions where you don't want to put a pilot on," said Vince Ambrosia, research scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field in Silicon Valley, where the experiment was done.

And John Melton, a NASA scientist who was involved in this project, tells us why the MLB Bats can be fully complementary with regular fire-fighting planes.

"There is potentially a nice fit here, where you could do your water attacks and use your manned aircraft during the day, and fly the UAVs at night. The UAVs then could feed that data to the incident commander, who could look at it first thing in the morning."

For more information about the MLB Bat unmanned aircraft, here are several links to its specifications, a photo gallery and some movies.

Sources: Bruce V. Bigelow, The San Diego Union-Tribune, August 22, 2005; Alicia Chang, Associated Press, August 22, 2005; and MLB Company web site

Related stories can be found in the following categories.

• Geosciences
  
• Engineering
  
• NASA
  
• Robotics
  

And remember that comments are no longer accepted here because of a vandal. If you want to tell me something about this post, please go to the bottom right of this page and send me an e-mail.