Date of Submission 26/03/2017

IPL Project (IPL - 196) Annual Report Form 2017 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016

1. Project Number (approved year) and Title,

IPL-196 (2015) Development and applications of a multi-sensors drone for geohazards monitoring and mapping

2. Main Project Fields (1) Technology Development

A. Monitoring and Early Warning, (4) Mitigation, Preparedness and Recovery

C. Recovery

3. Name of Project leader: Veronica Tofani Assistant Professor Department of Earth Sciences (DST-UNIFI) University of Florence Via G. La Pira n.4 I-50121 FIRENZE (Italy) Phone: +39 055 2757776 Fax: +39 055 2756296 Email: veronica.tofani@unifi.it

Core members of the Project: Nicola Casagli, Full Professor, DST-UNIFI Guglielmo Rossi, Research assistant, DST-UNIFI Filippo Catani, Associate Professor, DST-UNIFI

4. Objectives: The objective of the proposed project is to test the applicability of a multi-sensors drone for the mapping and monitoring of geohazards. In particular the project has two specific objectives: i) development of the drone, sensors, safety and automation and ii) application of the drone as a platform of integrated sensors (multispectral sensor, visible light camera, infrared camera and LIDAR) for the mapping and monitoring of geohazards.

5. Study Area: At the beginning of the project the study area will be constituted by several test cases in Italy where the different applications of the drone will be tested and evaluated. After the testing phase the study area can be expended to European and World level.

6. Project Duration: 3 years

7. Report

1) Progress in the project:

During the second year of the project the activities carried out are related to the two work packages foreseen in the project proposal. In particular:

WP1: Development of the multicopter drone, sensors, safety and automation.

WP1 has mainly focused on the development of a new smaller drone (Saturn mini) which has smaller dimension that the original Saturn. It has been completely designed and produced by DST-UNIFI with a 3D printer. Neverthless the light weight it has an high resistance to the wind and it has been designed mainly for aerial mapping.

The multicopter drone (Saturn) has been equipped with a visible light and a multispectral NIR camera while a very light hyperspectral sensor (visible and near infrared) has been specifically designed to be installed on the drone and it is currently under development as well as a radar sensor.

WP2: Application of the multi-sensors drone for rapid mapping, 3D surface reconstruction, monitoring.

WP2 has mainly focused on tasks TA2.1 (Application of multi-sensors drone to selected case studies) and TA2.3 (Validation of the multi-sensors drone acquisitions with data coming from ground-based instrumentation for selected test sites). In particular the activity has dealt with the application of the multicopter drone equipped with visible light camera for mapping and 3D surface reconstruction of geohazards. Two applications have been carried out in last year: the Ricasoli landslide (Itlay) and the Sciara del Fuoco of the Stromboli Volcano.

In Ricasoli the aim was to test the use of multicopter drone measurements for landslide detection and characterization. The images acquired during three aerial drone surveys have allowed to obtain a continuous 3D surface model of the studied area using a photogrammetric approach. The detection of possible displacements occurred in the covered area between three aerial surveys was performed by comparing the different Digital Terrain Models and point clouds. As a result, two mass movements were detected and characterized, namely LS1 and LS2, affecting the northern slope of Ricasoli village, and a new incipient phenomenon in the lower part of LS1

(Figure 1).

Figure 1: Outcomes of the drone surveys and DEM derived at Ricasoli village.

The application at the Sciara del Fuoco of the Stromboli Volcano has mainly concerned the 3D reconstruction of the ground surface. In particular in this application Saturn mini has been used due high danger to lose the equipment during the flight and the wind and weather conditions as well as volcanic ashes. Saturn mini has been equipped with a RGB camera sensor while the surveyed area was about 1 km2. The outcome is a DTM of the investigated area that it can be easily update with a new survey (Figure 2).

Figure 2: DEM derived from the aerial drone survey of the Sciara del Fuoco, Stromboli Volcano.

2) Planned future activities or Statement of completion of the Project

For the next year the activities foreseen are:

• Application of the multicopter drone in different sites affected by landslides and other types of geohazards and integration of the survey outcomes with ground-based and remote sensing techniques (TA2.1, 2.3, WP2)

• Development of devoted software for the interpretation of data coming from different sensors (TA2.2, WP2)

3) Beneficiaries of Project for Science, Education and/or Society (15 lines maximum)

The beneficiaries of this project are several: Civil Protection offices and institution, Research institutes, Universities, Public administrations, International organizations.

4) Results: (15 line maximum, e.g. publications)

Italian patent PI2013A000081

International PCT patent pending PCT/IB2014/064278

G. Rossi, M. Nocentini, L. Lombardi, P. Vannocci, L. Tanteri, G. Dotta, G. Bicocchi, G. Scaduto, T. Salvatici, Tofani V., Moretti S., Casagli N. (2016) Integration of multicopter drone measurements and ground-based data for landslide monitoring. Proceedings of the 12th International Symposium on Landslides, June 12th-19th , 2016, Napoli, Italy.

Rossi, G., Tanteri, L., Tofani, V., Vannocci, P., Moretti, S., and Casagli, N. (2017) Brief Communication: Use of multicopter drone optical images for landslide mapping and characterization, Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci. Discuss., doi:10.5194/nhess-2017-46, in review.

Rossi, G., Tanteri, L., Tofani, V., Vannocci, P., Moretti, S., and Casagli, N. (2017) Multitemporal UAV survey for mass movement detection and monitoring. Proceedings of the 4th World Landslide Forum, Lubiana, 29May-2June 2017.

Note:

1) If you will change items 1)-6) from the proposal, please write the revised content in Red. 2) Please fill and submit this form by 30 March 2017 to ICL Network <icl-network@iclhq.org>