Aerospace & Defense Technology - June 2022 - 30

Tech Briefs
Unmanned Aircraft Systems to Support Environmental
Applications within USACE Civil Works
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has identified a number of research and development
(R&D) opportunities to help reduce disaster risks, including cost-efficient technology, such as unmanned
aircraft system (UAS) technology for accurate, detailed, and timely two-dimensional and
three-dimensional monitoring of coastal and riverine landscapes.
Army Corps of Engineers, Washington, DC
C
oastal and riverine shorelines are
dynamic landscapes that change continually
in response to environmental
forces. The combination of static infrastructure
with dynamic and diverse landscapes
creates management challenges for
navigation, storm damage reduction, and
ecosystem health that are exacerbated
during natural disasters. The U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers (USACE) flood risk
management (FRM) mission strives to
reduce the nation's flood risk and increase
resilience to disasters. FRM is inherently
interdisciplinary, requiring accurate identification
of environmental, physical, and
infrastructure features that can reduce risk
from flood and coastal storm disasters.
USACE has identified a number of
research and development (R&D) opportunities
that will help reduce disaster risks,
including: identifying better technologies
for hazard identification pre- and postevents;
developing an interdisciplinary
understanding of physical, chemical, and
biological recovery processes that occur
post-event; and providing shared and easily
accessible, up-to-date data sets that can
be utilized by flood and coastal storm
A
modeling and predictive tools to inform
emergency response.
Cost-efficient technology and method0
25
50
100 m
0.15
0.14
Profile of DTM
Profile of direct field survey
Elevation of distances (m)
vertical to horizontal scale ratio is 4:1
0.13
0.06
B
0.13
0.19
0.09
0.16
0.14
0.16
0.19
0.10
0.43
0.12
0.0
45.0
90.0
Profile length (m)
Panel A shows the DTM (shaded presentation) of levees in a test area, and Panel B shows a comparison of
profiles of the direct field survey (GNSS) and the DTM generated from a UAS. (Courtesy of Bakula et al. [2017])
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ology, such as the use of unmanned aircraft
system (UAS) technology for accurate,
detailed, and timely two-dimensional
(2D) and three-dimensional (3D) monitoring
of coastal and riverine landscapes,
have the potential to address many of
these goals. However, an important process
in adapting new technologies is
ensuring an understanding of existing
methods, identifying gaps or shortcomings
with current techniques, and then
developing new approaches and providing
guidance and insight on how new
tools can address these gaps, as well as
exploring potential future capabilities. To
that end, the USACE Flood and Coastal
Systems R&D Program (FCS) has initiated
an effort focused on identifying and
developing defendable and consistent
UAS-based methodologies and data products
that can seamlessly integrate with
numerical models to improve quantification
of the nation's flood risks to coastal
and riverine shorelines, infrastructure,
ecosystems, and communities.
Remotely sensed data provide spatial
and temporal perspectives on ecological
phenomena that would otherwise be difficult
to study. Though traditional air- and
space-borne systems provide many advantages,
they are often constrained by cost;
temporal, spatial, and spectral resolution;
and cloud contamination. UASs are
emerging as flexible platforms that, in
many cases, overcome previous constraints
and, therefore, have the potential
to supplement or replace measurements
acquired from other methods.
Major advantages of UASs can be found
in the ability to operate in high-risk situations,
in inaccessible areas, at low altitudes,
and close to targets, all without
endangering human life. Recent technoAerospace
& Defense Technology, June 2022
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Aerospace & Defense Technology - June 2022

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