Extended Environmental Monitoring via Intelligent, Autonomous Airships

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Environmental scientists who develop policies for the effective management of human activity areoften thwarted by a lack of accurate information about the state of the environment. In somecases, the correct policy is not clear because the relationship between human activity and theenvironment is not well understood. Additional environmental data could improve such under-standingand provide the means to develop effective policies. In other cases effective policieshave been proposed but additional data is required to justify the political and economic costs ofimplementation. However, more data by itself is not the solution. The human resources neces-saryto parse and analyze the data are scarcer than available data. What is necessary is intelli-genceto actively sample in such a way as to maximize the useful content in the data.The proposed inter-disciplinary program will investigate means of extended-term environmentalmonitoring. Specifically, this project seeks to endow a solar-powered airship with the intelligenceto conduct extended-duration, autonomous environmental sampling. We will explore issues ofconfiguration and design, path planning and control in the presence of weather patterns, andalgorithms necessary for intelligent environmental monitoring. The intended result is an instru-mentedplatform for efficiently gathering accurately tagged environmental data that can stay aloftindefinitely.Airships are well suited for environmental monitoring tasks, however their potential in this capac-ityremains unfulfilled. As aerial monitoring platforms, they exhibit numerous advantages overfixed wing aircraft and helicopters. They are safer, more stable, and less expensive. They con-sumeless power and are capable of extended operation. Given the intelligence to operate auton-omouslyand the proper sensing hardware, an airship provides a sensing platform that would bean asset to a diverse range of environmental scientists who seek to understand, remediate, andmanage the environment. Potential applications of this technology include forest and crop man-agement,wetland surveys, land use assessment, monitoring of hazardous waste sites, and ero-sionquantification.Through a cost-sharing provision with Carnegie Mellon University, we will demonstrate ourresults on a prototype, instrumented airship to generate a characterization of air pollution. Work-ingtogether with a recently funded EPA Supersite in Pittsburgh, this project will employ an airshipto generate 3-D profiles of air pollution and ambient particulate matter. The resulting data set willprovide new insights into the vertical distribution and transport mechanisms of air pollution.New technologies cannot turn back the ecological clock but they can help environmental scien-tistspush back the frontiers of knowledge and help ordinary citizens grasp the urgency of pre-servingour natural world. It is now possible to use previously classified images from spysatellites that show the extent of environmental degradation at a macro scale. This proposal willcreate a means of gathering dense environmental data at a much finer resolution, in a more effi-cientmanner.