The ability to provide a “volcano forecast” could help reduce the significant health, safety, and even economic impacts of eruptions; they regularly disrupt aviation and the global supply chain we depend on. Last fall, circling the summit of an active volcano, a small aircraft moved us toward a future where remote but hazardous volcanoes are consistently monitored for signs an eruption could be brewing.
This unmanned aircraft system, or UAS, commonly known as a drone, was
specially designed for scientific uses in challenging environments – and then
upgraded to become an airborne volcano-observing platform. With flights to
Makushin Volcano in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands in September 2021, a group of
federal scientists and industry engineers demonstrated the UAS could
successfully fly without its pilots’ eyes on the aircraft. And that opens new
possibilities for monitoring volcanoes and other hazards worldwide.
Maciej Stachura of Black
Swift Technologies carries the S2 aircraft to its launch site at Dutch Harbor
airport in Alaska. Credits: Aleutian Aerial/Andy Dietrick
Out-of-Sight Flights,
Years in the Making
Sending researchers on foot or piloted
aircraft to survey volcanoes up close can be dangerous and costly. It’s also
just not realistic to do for a large number of volcanoes on a regular basis.
But a sophisticated UAS could do the job, if it could fly beyond the visual
line of sight of its operators. The capability, known by the acronym BVLOS,
marks a kind of threshold that, once passed, will make many more applications
possible.
At NASA, using UASs for up-close monitoring of
volcanoes was first demonstrated by researchers from the agency’s Ames Research
Center in California’s Silicon Valley. In 2013, they collected science data by flying small, fixed-wing drones over Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica.
Later, a long-term collaboration between NASA and Black
Swift Technologies of Boulder, Colorado, resulted in the S2 UAS, which made the
recent groundbreaking flights in Alaska.
“We needed it to be really rugged, to withstand flying
in the turbulent conditions and corrosive gases around volcanoes,” said Florian
Schwandner, director of the Earth Sciences division at Ames and an early member
of the project. “We also developed a gas-sensing payload the UAS could carry to
look for signs of volcanic unrest.”
When the U.S. Geological
Survey joined the partnership a few years in, they brought an even more capable
payload to detect additional gases and collect visual and thermal images.pic
The development path that
led to the S2’s flight demonstration was supported in part by NASA’s Small
Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer program, whose management office is located
at Ames. The program funds small businesses and research institutions for the
research, development, and demonstration of innovative technologies with
significant potential for successful commercialization. For all drones,
scientific and otherwise, achieving safe BVLOS flight is the next big step
toward widespread commercial use.
View of the Makushin Volcano summit captured by a camera on the wing of the S2 aircraft. The unmanned aircraft system flew autonomously beyond range of its pilot’s sight – 15 miles away and to an altitude of 6,000 feet – to capture data about volcanic activity during a flight demonstration in September 2021. Credits: Black Swift Technologies
To the Summit and Back
To demonstrate the S2 could fly this way –
with no eyes on the aircraft, only on monitors displaying its flight path – one
major requirement was a plan for integrating the UAS safely into the airspace.
The Flight Operations division at Ames worked with the Federal Aviation
Administration and Black Swift to develop the operations necessary to fly
safely out of sight.
During the deployment, the team flew four BVLOS
missions to Makushin Volcano, 15 miles away. The S2 relied on its autonomous
systems and a programmed flight plan to reach the summit, where the aircraft
captured high-resolution visible-light and thermal images. The team’s
scientists confirmed they could use these to detect changes in physical
features that indicate volcanic activity changing underground. The flights also
demonstrated the capacity of sensors aboard the aircraft to detect gases that
may signal changes in activity brewing in the volcano’s depths.
“Our goal is to continue to push the capabilities of
UASs to provide valuable insight into natural phenomena,” said Jack Elston, CEO
of Black Swift Technologies. “This deployment demonstrated some
state-of-the-art automation technologies we think will help greatly simplify
what are now very difficult UAS operations. One of the most exciting results
was to see our custom autopilot system determine when conditions had become too
dangerous and turn back.”
Aerial photograph of the
summit of Makushin Volcano in Alaska, overlaid with thermal image data in
yellow. The thermal data shows areas of hot ground, testifying to the active
nature of this volcano. Both images were captured by the S2 UAS using onboard
instruments during a successful demonstration of beyond-visual-line-of-sight,
or BVLOS, flights in September 2021. The volcano’s crater lake is visible at
lower right, along with fumaroles scattered around the summit area that are
releasing volcanic gases. Credits: Black Swift Technologies
A Future of Routine Flights
The proven ability to fly safely beyond range of a pilot’s sight with this
scientific platform paves the way for more routine operations.
“Working with NASA and Black Swift, our scientists believe we can use UASs
to help authorities warn communities about the onset of dangerous volcanic
eruptions, and many other hazards that now take us by surprise,” said Jonathan
Stock, director of the USGS National Innovation Center, which helped fund and
coordinate the September 2021 flights. “With this tool, we could routinely
monitor even remote volcanoes for activity and respond to eruption events – a
gamechanger for the safety of both our scientists and the communities around
these geologic hazards.”
This partnership between government and small business could make BVLOS
drone flights possible for tracking and responding to a diverse suite of
hazards around the world, including droughts, floods, wildfires, and many
more.
This work is the product of a long-term partnership between NASA, Black
Swift Technologies LLC, and USGS. Funding for the Makushin Volcano project was
provided by the USGS National Land Imaging Program and the USGS National
Innovation Center, working with NASA’s SBIR/STTR program to leverage NASA’s
original investment in the aircraft prototype. USGS also funded the NASA Ames
Flight Operations division through an interagency agreement to provide
airworthiness reviews and airspace integration coordination with the FAA.
Banner image: The S2 UAS ready for deployment on its pneumatic launcher at
Dutch Harbor airport in Alaska. Credits: Aleutian Aerial/Andy Dietrick
For news media:
Members of the news media interested in covering this topic should reach out to
the NASA Ames newsroom.
Author: Abby Tabor,
NASA's Ames Research Center
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