Prince George - NEWS - Free Press
www.pgfreepress.com
Friday, May 9, 2014
9
Local drones take to the air Allan Wishart allanw@pgfreepress. com John Rankin eyed the skies over Cottonwood Island Park uneasily. “It wasn’t supposed to rain today,� said the president of J.R. Canadian Mapping. “We can go if it’s raining, but it’s better if it isn’t.� Rankin was hoping for good weather on April 30 as he prepared to launch an unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone. As he waited for a break in the intermittent drizzle, Rankin said this was a public demonstration of the drone, but it also was serving a purpose. “We’re doing a job here for EDI. We’re mapping Cottonwood Island Park, and specifically looking to map the course of a stream which runs through the park. It dries up every summer, resulting in a fair bit of fish kill, and they want to see where the stream runs so they might be able to come up with a way to stop it from drying up.� He glanced back up at the clouds above the park, then pulled out a walkie-talkie. “Are the parking lots clear yet?� he asked a couple of other people who were at the other parking lots in the park along the river. “NavCan regulations say we can’t fly over areas where people are, so we have to make sure the parks and parking lots are empty before we take off.�
Allan WISHART/Free Press J.R. Canadian Mapping president John Rankin gives an unmanned aerial vehicle, or drone, a last check before launching it on a mapping run at Cottonwood Island Park on April 30.
The pair of drones look like they are made of styrofoam, and Rankin explains that’s close. “It’s a form of styrofoam, but it’s tougher and more durable. We sometimes have crashes.� They’ve cut down the number of crashes over the past two years, since they started the drone project. “We’re basically building them from scratch, so we had no idea what kind of flight parameters we had. We had to experiment to find out what their stall speed was, how much of a bank they could make, everything. “There were a fair number of crashes.� The good news, he says, is the body of the drone is “semi-disposable�, so it’s not crucial that it hold together after a flight. The important stuff is what’s inside. “We have a camera in there, a GPS system, the motor for the drone, a whole bunch of other stuff which is
needed to collect the data during the flight.� All the flights, including the one today, have all been carefully mapped out, and the route is stored in the drone’s ‘brain’. Just in case there are any problems, though, there is a back-up system. “We do have a handheld remote controller we can switch to at any time,� Rankin says. Last year, J.R. Canadian Mapping had worked on a pilot project with the College of New Caledonia to map one of the school’s research forests, then compare its data to that from a ground-based mapping. “That part didn’t go well,� Rankin says. “It turns out there was no area there to launch or land the aircraft. Most of our flights ended with a controlled crash.� They switched target areas to another CNC area on the Hart Highway.
“We gathered some quite nice data from that work. We were able to generate 3D images right down to the individual tree branches.� They haven’t been able to compare maps, though, since the ground mapping hasn’t been done yet. He checks over the radio one more time. All the areas are clear. And while the sky isn’t clear, at least it isn’t raining right now. Rankin and project development manager Christina Tennant run one more series of tests on the drone, making sure all the controls are functioning and the camera is working. “Can I get everyone to move that way about 30 metres?� Rankin asks the crowd of about 30 people who have gathered to watch the demonstration. When everyone is out of the flight path, he winds the launching mechanism up, places the drone in place, and, while Tennant holds the launcher steady on target, he pushes the control to get the drone airborne. “We developed a launcher,� he had said earlier, “because it makes things easier. We can still launch by hand, but having that propeller spinning that fast can be scary when you’re holding it.� The drone launches cleanly and sets off on its programmed path. It will be airborne for about 40 minutes. “Then the real work starts,� Rankin says. “We’ll hook the computer with the images up at the office and the computers there will probably go non-stop for a day or two to process all the information. “Then we’ll see what we’ve got.�
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