TY - JOUR
T1 - Surface flow measurements from drones
AU - Tauro, Flavia
AU - Porfiri, Maurizio
AU - Grimaldi, Salvatore
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported by the Ministero degli Affari Esteri project 2015 Italy-USA PGR00175, by the American Geophysical Union Horton (Hydrology) Research Grant for Ph.D. students, by the UNESCO Chair in “Water Resources Management and Culture”, and by the National Science Foundation under grant numbers BCS-1124795 and CMMI-1129820 .
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier B.V.
PY - 2016/9/1
Y1 - 2016/9/1
N2 - Drones are transforming the way we sense and interact with the environment. However, despite their increased capabilities, the use of drones in geophysical sciences usually focuses on image acquisition for generating high-resolution maps. Motivated by the increasing demand for innovative and high performance geophysical observational methodologies, we posit the integration of drone technology and optical sensing toward a quantitative characterization of surface flow phenomena. We demonstrate that a recreational drone can be used to yield accurate surface flow maps of sub-meter water bodies. Specifically, drone's vibrations do not hinder surface flow observations, and velocity measurements are in agreement with traditional techniques. This first instance of quantitative water flow sensing from a flying drone paves the way to novel observations of the environment.
AB - Drones are transforming the way we sense and interact with the environment. However, despite their increased capabilities, the use of drones in geophysical sciences usually focuses on image acquisition for generating high-resolution maps. Motivated by the increasing demand for innovative and high performance geophysical observational methodologies, we posit the integration of drone technology and optical sensing toward a quantitative characterization of surface flow phenomena. We demonstrate that a recreational drone can be used to yield accurate surface flow maps of sub-meter water bodies. Specifically, drone's vibrations do not hinder surface flow observations, and velocity measurements are in agreement with traditional techniques. This first instance of quantitative water flow sensing from a flying drone paves the way to novel observations of the environment.
KW - Flow measurement
KW - Large Scale Particle Image Velocimetry
KW - Surface hydrology
KW - Unmanned aerial vehicle
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U2 - 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.06.012
DO - 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2016.06.012
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84975789240
SN - 0022-1694
VL - 540
SP - 240
EP - 245
JO - Journal of Hydrology
JF - Journal of Hydrology
ER -