INNOVATION November-December 2017

F E A T U R E

DRONES: UNTETHERED POTENTIAL The use of unmanned aerial vehicles for engineering and geoscience work opens up a new realm of possibility for professionals and the industries and communities they serve. Is this the next quantum leap? I ncreasingly popular, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), are employed for a wide range of uses, from recreational to commercial and beyond. Known colloquially as drones, these aircraft have come to the forefront of public consciousness, largely due to media coverage of military operations that have seen them dropping bombs on combat missions. Despite the dark shadow cast by this association, drones are rising in prominence as the cost to produce them has lowered, and availability has increased, making them an attractive option for varied and ingenuous uses. Today, recreational versions are available to the general consumer, and wider commercial use is being trialled. Amazon has been conducting private trials of its Prime Air delivery service, while in Rwanda, San Francisco-based Zipline is using delivery drones to drop off life-saving supplies of blood products to remote hospitals and clinics outside of the capital, Kigali. On the face of it, Google parent company Alphabet’s delivery of Chipotle burritos by drone may seem like baby steps in the direction of a world where a self-driving car takes you to work, and an unmanned passenger octocopter picks you up to go home. However, this seemingly innocuous—even frivolous—parachuting of Tex-Mex food by UAV is in fact the live test of an air traffic control system that is managing the flight paths of multiple UAVs, adjusting routes to avoid mid-air collisions. The technology being developed with the help of these initial tests has the potential for deep impacts that may prove to be truly innovatively disruptive. Ultimately, a drone is a tool; an extension of the user on the other end of its programming or controls. Although tethered by the limitations of current technology, they offer potential for a multiplicity of uses. In the hands of a skilled engineering or geoscience professional, this technology is capable of enhancing the acquisition of data that supports sound scientific reasoning and decision-making, and enabling new technical solutions. We explore two examples of such use in the following articles by Ryan Preston, P.Eng., and Kliment Kuzmanovski, P.Eng.

Imagery from a UAV flyover of the outflow of a creek into Quesnel Lake showing waterway rehabilitation completed after a tailings dam failure.

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