Earth & Sky

Fleets of smart robotic planes spot wildfires

DB: This is Earth and Sky. Scientists are trying to find better ways to detect wildfires and other disasters in remote places. One solution could be small, uninhabited aerial vehicles – or UAVs.

JB: Frank Cutler is project manager for the Earth Science Capabilities Demonstration Project. He’s developing a system that allows several UAVs to form a fleet and work together.

Frank Cutler: Recently, we did a small UAV study where we had two small aircraft, both unpiloted. And there was a system developed that would allow these two aircraft to communicate with each other and they were set up in a flight pattern to patrol a given area.

DB: One aircraft was told that a fire was detected by its sensors. It wasn’t a real fire. It was simulated. The idea was to show simply that the aircraft’s computer knew what to do.

Frank Cutler: And so the aircraft sensor sensed fire in that location and said, “Oops, I’m going to stop and observe what’s occurring here and send data back as to what’s occurring.” So the second aircraft then took over the patrolling aspects of what that first aircraft was supposed to be doing. So it’s kind of a cooperative knowledge sharing routine that these two aircraft were operating with.

JB: Cutler envisions a time when fleets of UAVs patrol the skies, looking for anything from wildfires to terrorist attacks. Special thanks today to NASA’s Aeronautics Research Mission. We’re Block and Byrd for Earth and Sky.