For Civilian Drones, the Sky is the Limit

GRAND FORKS, N.D. â€" As I wrote in Monday’s paper, crossing the hobbyist’s remote-controlled airplane with cheap electronics from the cellphone industry seems likely to yield highly capable, very inexpensive drones.

What could they be used for

At the University of North Dakota, where students can actually graduate with a degree in “unmanned aerial systems” (they wince at the term “drone”), people are dreaming up all kinds of ideas.

On a recent afternoon in Aviation 331, Systems of Unmanned Aircraft, Joel Thomas, a senior from Joshua Tree, Calif., laid out his plan: a four-rotor helicopter that would fit in a box on top of a freight train’s locomotive. The egineer has to periodically inspect all the air brakes, and the train can be nearly two miles long, so even at a brisk walk, this is time consuming. A drone programmed to fly down one side of the train and back up on the other, focusing a camera on the brakes, could do the job a lot faster, he said.

And suppose a train wanted to go backwards Freight trains no longer carry cabooses. “The conductor would have to get up and walk back two miles to protect the back of the train,’’ said Mr. Thomas. A drone could do that faster, he said.

Along with saving money for a railroad, the drone could have a strong safety function, he said. As long as it is on board, it may as well be equipped with sensors for chlorine, anhydrous ammonia or other toxic chemicals commonly carried in tank cars. In case of derailment, the drone could determine immediately whether there was a leak, saving time and saving human exposure.
And its camera could show whether there was a fire, and the extent of damage, Mr! . Thomas said.

This being North Dakota, a lot of the focus is on agriculture. Farms are a good place to try out unmanned aircraft, since a crash is unlikely to hit anything important. And farmers, experts say, often do not have a clear idea of what is going on in their fields, and they are reluctant to drive through them too often, any more than a suburban homeowner wants to walk through his flower bed. Routine inspections by drones, which can be programmed to fly a pattern like a lawnmower, can spot problems early, they say. Some people expect unmanned systems to be sold as accessories to farm tractors.

Others say that tiny helicopters with cameras and brains added will become routine for things as diverse as inspecting a rooftop air conditioner and scoping out a crime scene.

Some of the ancillary industries are already in place here. Grand Forks Air Force Base flies Global Hawks and Prdators, for border patrol duties and other uses, from this location. And Predators in the air over Afghanistan are controlled from the base here, too, although the drones are physically based closer to that country.

The area is competing to be one of several test sites to be chosen by the Federal Aviation Administration for a technology called “sense and avoid,” which will have to replace the standard method of general aviation pilots, “see and avoid,” because a drone pilot has very limited vision. The idea is that each aircraft will know its location through GPS and transmit that information to a computer on the ground, which will translate that into moving dots on a three-dimensional map, and send that back to the pilots, whether they are on the ground or in the air. The technology already exists in some places without radar, but it would have to become near-universal in use.

While drones are predominantly a military technology now, people in the emerging business see a burgeoni! ng civil ! market, extending in all directions.

Brent Eastes, a senior from Vancouver, Wash., had a different idea. Mr. Eastes is building something that looks more like a motorized glider, with an eight-foot wingspan. It will hunt thermals, he said, and could soar to 20,000 feet.

His target is a forest fire, which he called “a continuous, never-ending thermal.” With a camera attached, his drone could spot the progress of a fire and pinpoint the location of the firefighters for an incident commander.

His design includes a propeller and a small motor. It can be programmed so that if the glider sinks below a minimum safe altitude, the motor starts and the glider either climbs or lands itself. Solar panels on the wings might give enough energy, combined with the thermals, for extended flights, he said.

How to launch it Mr. Eastes is still working on that. In the right conditions, it could be thrown like a javelin. But he is considering disposable balloons, which would detach at 5,000 feet.

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