Introduction
For the last few decades, Indonesia
has experienced rapid land use as forests and peat swamps have been cleared for
plantation such as palm oil and timber. Fires are used as the predominant method
of clearing and managing land during dry seasons by the farmers and plantation
owners. The practice is part of the tradition and also the most economical and efficient.
In recent years, large scale land clearance is the main reason that causes
uncontained wildfires. The related emissions affect public health by
contributing to regional particulate matter and ozone concentrations and adding
to global atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations (Marlier, et al., 2015) .
In view of this, there are many advantages
by deploying UAVs to spot and monitor the pattern and movement of wildfires so
that the rescue and fire contain operations can be managed more efficiently.
Indonesia is a developing country with limited infrastructure at the remote
areas. Deployment of UAVs is a better way to detect and monitor wildfires with
a fraction of the costs compared to manned aircraft. More importantly, it is
much safer to the pilot and property as uncontained wildfires can be very
dangerous. For this proposal, the UAV must be able to withstand high
temperature and strong wind. Another important factor is the hovering
capability of the UAV to maintain at required height for detailed monitoring.
System
Development
The system development encompasses
life cycle and design process of the product based on the requirements from
designers, developers and manufacturers. Before the product is delivered to
users, it must go through product certification conforming to the standard
stipulated by regulatory and authority to ensure safe operation. Certification
requires product manufacturer to establish traceability and reliability of the
development process. Reliability of the product requires various ground testing
such as component testing, subsystem testing, integration testing, and most importantly,
in-flight testing. For this proposal, waterfall method is used to project the
life cycle of the system development. The design process of UAV must be robust
and structured. The process is estimated to last 6 months inclusive of system development,
ground testing, and in-flight testing.
Design Process & Criteria
To achieve the mission of
spotting and monitoring of wildfires in remote areas, it is important to design
a robust UAV that can withstand high temperature and strong wind when close
monitoring of wildfires is necessary. The UAV must fulfill the following
criteria such as easy transportability, affordable cost with solid air vehicle
frame; accurate command & control, effective payload, undisrupted data-link
and support equipment so that the operation can be carried out safely and
effectively. Following are the design requirements (Austin,
2010):
- Cost-effectiveness of system
- Reliability, availability, and maintainability
- · Mobility, transportability, and deployability
- Sustainability
- Environmental operating conditions
- Survivability and vulnerability
- Safety
- Interchangeability and modularity of systems
Following are the requirements necessary
to design UAV that is suitable for detecting and monitoring wildfires operation
in the remote areas of Indonesia:
Transportability
Entire
system with all elements shall be transportable in a hardened case and weight
less than 50 lbs. to allow single person to carry the case with ease. Following
are the requirements for transportation case:
- To provide cutout for air vehicle element.
- To provide cutout for ground control equipment.
- To provide cutout for power equipment.
- To withstand drop from height of five feet with minimal surface damage.
- Weigh less than 50 pounds when filled with UAS components.
Cost
The
cost of each UAV shall be less than $100,000 for equipment only. It excludes
the cost to train and hire UAV pilots or controllers.
Air
vehicle element
In order to
monitor wildfires safely, the UAV must be robust and able to perform with the following
requirements:
- Capable of flight up to 500 feet altitude above ground level (AGL)
- Capable of sustained flight (at loiter speed) in excess of one hour
- Capable of covering an operational radius of one mile
- Deployable and on station (i.e., in air over mission area) in less than 15 minutes
- Capable of manual and autonomous operation
- Provide capture of telemetry, including altitude, magnetic heading, latitude/longitude position, and orientation (i.e., pitch, roll, and yaw)
- Provide power to payload, telemetry sensors, and data-link
- Shall provide capability to orbit (i.e., fly in circular pattern around) or hover over an object of interest
Command
& Control (C2)
The
reliability of command and control of the UAV is very important especially at
remote areas in view of the logistic shortage. Rediscover of lost UAV in the
midst of Indonesia forest is almost unlikely. Following are the requirements:
- Shall be capable of manual and autonomous operation
- Shall provide redundant flight control to prevent flyaway
- Shall visually depict telemetry of air vehicle element
- Shall visually depict payload sensor views
Payload
- Shall be capable of color daytime video operation up to 500 feet AGL
- Shall be capable of infrared (IR) video operation up to 500 feet AGL
- Shall be interoperable with C2 and data-link
- Shall use power provided by air vehicle element
Data-link
(communications)
- Shall be capable of communication range exceeding two miles visual line of sight (VLOS)
- Shall provide redundant communication capability (backup) for C2
- Shall use power provided by air vehicle element
Support
equipment
·
Design shall identify any support
equipment required to support operation
Testing
Requirement
Testing is
necessary to capture effects of stresses and loads (physical, electrical, and
environmental) on integrity and performance capabilities of the system,
subsystem and components. Example of integrated assemblies to be tested are as
follows:
- Undercarriages
- Flight control system
- Power plant
- Payloads
- Transportability
Item Storage:
- Inspect the transportation case to confirm equipment storage cutouts
- Test fit the air vehicle element in the transportation case
- Test fit the ground control equipment in the transportation case
- Test fit the power equipment in the transportation case
·
Durability
o
Verify that case can withstand drop from
height of five feet
o
Verify that the equipment is not damaged
after drop from height of five feet
o
Verify that the damage remains in place
after drop from height of five feet
·
Weight
o
Verify the weight of fully loaded case is
less than 50 pounds
Conclusion
This proposal to
design and develop UAV for wildfires detection and monitoring is estimated to
last 6 months. Another option is to buy existing commercially-off-the-shelf
(COTS) UAV, which can perform similar operation with shorter development life
cycle. Most of these UAVs have been certified by the regulatory in meeting
required standards and specifications. Prior to on-site deployment, in-flight
testing is mandatory to compare specifications provided by the manufacturer
with those observed on-site. The difference between them are to be compared and
recorded for further fine tuning and adjustment in order to achieve safe
operation.
Reference
Marlier, M. E.,
DeFries, R., Pennington, D., Nelson, E., Ordway, E. M., Lewis, J., Faculty of
Science. (2015). Future fire emissions associated with projected land use
change in Sumatra. Global Change Biology, 21(1), 345-362. doi:10.1111/gcb.12691
Austin, R. (2010).
Unmanned aircraft systems: UAVS design, development, and deployment.
Chichester, West Sussex, U.K: Wiley.
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