The drone, a new purchase by the IU geography department , belongs to Taehee Hwang , an assistant professor in the geography department.
The quadro copter, as he calls it, or the Phantom II, is just a cheap commercial drone he was using as a test subject.
He bought the drone with his own research ?money.
However, the department has much bigger plans for its controlled gadget.
“We are looking to equip the UAV with a hyperspectral sensor and carry out some test flights over the flux tower at the Morgan-Monroe State Forest,” Hwang said in an email.
He said that flying drones in forests is safer in terms of the public security issues that usually surround drones.
Hwang said the department is in the process of building rain shelters in the forest that will remove either 40, 60 or 80 percent of rain fall “with measurements of soil moisture and temperature and other ancillary meteorological ?measurements.”
They will then use this research to determine whether or not change occurred at those test sites.
Hwang refers to these drones with a more technical term: UAV or unmanned aerial vehicle.
However, the geography department’s approach to using this unmanned technology is not necessarily hands-off.
“We are trying to monitor the drought from ?hyperspectral remote sensing from a UAV, which provides us more frequent opportunity for image acquiring than airborne,” Hwang said .
The drone will not simply capture singular pictures or images of the land it is surveying but will be able to provide more detailed analysis of its surroundings.
James King , a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Geography , tweeted Sept. 9 about the commercial drone that Hwang had acquired.
“Our Geography department now has a drone! What can I use this for?!” he wrote, including a link to a five-minute YouTube video that demonstrated what the drone could do.
Hwang said this video was a part of promoting Geographic Information Systems Day on campus. Several events will contribute to this celebration, which is slated to take place Nov. 19 this year.
GIS day will feature activities, several presentations, 3D visualizations, earthquake models and interactive maps, among other things, according to its website.
There will be another public demonstration of how this drone works on that day, if weather permits, Hwang said.
Hwang said progress could be slow for the bigger drone plans.
“I expect the process for obtaining IU and FAA approval for this type of autonomous flight control operation will be a slow one,” he said.
Hwang isn’t the only member of the department at IU who’s interested in drone research or using drones in their research.
Kimberly Novic , assistant professor in SPEA , and Abdulkader Sinno , associate professor of political science and middle eastern studies, are working to create a leaf picker using the same kind of technology, and IU has invested seed money for Precision Hawk, which is “an end-to-end aerial data solution,” according to its Facebook page.
There will also be a drone-related seminar Sept. 22 that will be delivered by psychology professor Tom Busey.
Those interested in learning more about these kinds of studies and research are welcome to ?attend.
