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Serving society

Stimulating innovation

Supporting legislation

UAV assessment to support EU policies

Elena Roglia

Max Craglia

Sistema di Monitoraggio Avanzato del Territorio – SMAT

SMAT Project aims at studying and demonstrating a surveillance system, to support: prevention and control of a wide range of natural

events (fires, floods,landslides) environment protection against human

intervention (traffic, urban planning, pollution and cultivation)

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SMAT architecture

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SMAT-F1, was the first

phase of SMAT project and

aimed to demonstrate an

integrated use of three

Unmanned Air Vehicle

(UAV) platforms inside of

a primary scenario,

relevant for the Piedmont

Region.

Before mission: mission planning, UAS tasks allocation.

During mission: mission monitoring, data collection from the CSs, operator support in the interaction with the system

After mission: conclusive report and Second Level Exploitation of data.

SSC

Second Level Exploitation activity

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analyze and correlate data collected during missions

allow visualization, re-processing and retrieval of data according to users needs

Provide a mechanism to retrieve

and search metadata

Metadata Retrieval and Search

Add metadata to geo-referenced

objects related to missions stored

in the SSC database

Metadata are annotations provided by users of an open, collaborative system

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Route Waypoints

& Flown Points

Airport Target

EnviroDrones Exploratory Research on New Information Sources and Data Integration

Investigate the potential of UAS for

environmental applications, and

identify implications for European

policy.

Develop INSPIRE-compliant

communication protocols for

mobile sensors

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INSPIRE Directive 2007/02/EC

The INSPIRE Directive lays down general rules to establish an Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe for the purposes of Community environmental policies and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment

This decentralised infrastructure is built on the infrastructures for spatial information established and operated by the Member States

JRC is the technical coordinator

1. Metadata

2. Interoperability of spatial data sets

and services

3. Network services (discovery, view,

download, transform, invoke)

4. Data and Service sharing (policy ) 5. Coordination and measures for

monitoring & reporting

INSPIRE Thematic Scope Annex I

1. Coordinate reference systems

2. Geographical grid systems

3. Geographical names

4. Administrative units

5. Addresses

6. Cadastral parcels

7. Transport networks

8. Hydrography

9. Protected sites

Annex II 1. Elevation

2. Land cover

3. Ortho-imagery

4. Geology

Annex III 1. Statistical units

2. Buildings

3. Soil

4. Land use

5. Human health and safety

6. Utility and governmental services

7. Environmental monitoring facilities

8. Production and industrial facilities

9. Agricultural and aquaculture facilities

10.Population distribution – demography

11. Area management/

restriction/regulation zones & reporting units

12. Natural risk zones

13. Atmospheric conditions

14. Meteorological geographical features

15. Oceanographic geographical features

16. Sea regions

17. Bio-geographical regions

18. Habitats and biotopes

19. Species distribution

20. Energy Resources

21. Mineral resources

user user

dataset dataset dataset

... ...

• Access to different data • several formats and semantic

structures lack of

interoperability

Interoperability

Starting point…

... ...

Network Service

Network Service

Network Service

Provide access to harmonized data at EU level

Data sets used in Member States may stay as they are

Harmonization through transformation services that can "translate" data based on a data model agreed between the European Member States

dataset dataset dataset

user user

... The objective of INSPIRE

Interoperability

“Deepening” INSPIRE: Air Quality reporting pilot

•Using INSPIRE for enabling access to comparable near real-time air quality information

• Cooperation between DG ENV, JRC, EEA and MS volunteers

• Conformant with INSPIRE & existing reporting data flows between MSs and the EEA

• Extension of the data model for mobile sensors

• Future extensions in others INSPIRE thematic areas.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)

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Category Range (km)

Flight Altitude (m)

Endurance (h)

MTOW (kg)

Example

Micro/Mini UAV (MUAV) or Low Altitude Short Endurance (LASE)

< 10 300 < 2 < 30 md4-200, Nano Hummingbird

Medium Altitude Long Endurance (MALE)

> 500 15,000 24 - 48 1,500 - 7,000

Talarion, Predator, Heron

High Altitude Long Endurance (HALE)

> 2,000

20,000 24 - 48 4,500 - 15,000

Global Hawk

Vertical Take-off and Landing (VTOL UAV)

< 200 < 6,000 < 8 < 1,400

Nano Hummingbird, MQ-8 Fire Scout

Source: Adapted from Blyenburgh (2011, 120)

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(Dis)Advantages of UAV

+ Low-cost (MUAV/LASE)

+ comparatively high endurance

(MALE/HALE)

+ Increased safety for operating

personnel

+ Flexible sensor payload

+ Very high resolution (cm)

− absence of a legal and regulatory framework

− the political and societal acceptance

− high development and procurement costs

(MALE/HALE)

− short endurance and low speed (MUAV/LASE)

− Need for miniaturizing instrumentation

− Need for experience to operate UAV systems

− Coverage not intended for covering EU / countries

−

Estimated UAV market (Source: Frost & Sullivan)

UAV market in commercial sectors (Source: Frost & Sullivan)

A recent study on robotics industry forecasts that UAVs will generate $13.6 billion in economic impact in the first three years of operation in the U.S.

It is predicted more than 70,000 new jobs created in the first three years.

It is predicted a market of roughly 10,000 active commercial UAVs in five years

90% of the potential UAV market would be for agriculture and public safety

UAV forecast 2015-2025

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

European Commission Initiatives

• Hearing conducted on 8 October 2009 on Light UAS (DG MOVE)

• High Level Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems 1st July 2010 (European Commission and the European Defense Agency)

• Five workshops in 2011-2012: Resulted in the European RPAS(remotely piloted aircraft systems community) Steering Group

Example of civil application:

• Scientific Research and Environmental Monitoring

• Precision Agriculture and policy monitoring

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

source: Pablo J. Zarco-Tejada – JRC

Some Conclusions

» Discussion regarding Unmanned vs Manned vs Satellite is unnecessary

complement each other (satellite + UAV OR manned)

» Imagery from UAVs superior in spatial & spectral resolution (but smaller coverage) to satellites (larger coverage)

» EU end users request products derived from UAVs and aircraft that

satellites cannot provide critical for monitoring agricultural &

environmental resources

» As part of the new CAP there is a need to monitor specific targets / elements which are difficult with current standard satellites:

water for irrigation / soil cover / practices to limit erosion / landscape features / measures to avoid invasive plant species

elena.roglia@jrc.ec.europa.eu