10/14 Progress Update

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The weather this week posed to be rather troublesome obstacle in our data collection. Winds were gusting well beyond the limits of our platform, so we deemed it unsafe to fly on our first planned flight day and the following day. This is the reason that a strong safety management system is so important. Flying in unsafe conditions can result in injury or damage to the platform, which makes having a strong SMS essential to any UAV operation. 


Each of our flights were flown at 400 feet to get a wide shot of the area. We flew a grid pattern in a parallel direction so all of the data would be taken facing the same direction of north. We used an overlap of 90% to ensure that our data aligned correctly when we process it. Using the standard overlap of 70% causes inaccuracies in the matching of photos and results in bad data. In our images, purple is cold, red is warm, and white is hot
Purdue Wildlife Area Study Area
Once the weather cooperated, the group did a full day’s worth of data collection on Monday. We took out our trusty M600 with the Zenmuse XT2 thermal sensor to our favorite location: Purdue Wildlife Area. We woke up bright and early at 6:30 am to prepare for our 8am flight. Our goal was to fly as close to sunrise as possible to ensure that we measured the surface temperature just as the ground and surrounding area started to warm up. Flying at this time also guarantees that we get the minimum amount of reflected radiation in our data. This gives us a good baseline to compare to our afternoon and night flights.

8am Thermal flight
As you can see from the image, the metal roofs of the buildings are much colder than the surrounding land. It is also apparent that the rock parking lot and driveway are warmer than the grass areas. The grass that is near the warmer parts of the parking lot is also much warmer than the grass that is not near the parking lot. A fire was lit in one of the buildings causing the roof to be warmer and causing the surrounding land to be warmer.

Our next flight was at 4pm. This is generally around the warmest part of the day. Gathering data at this time allows for a better temperature contrast between the coolest and warmest parts of the study area. 
4pm Thermal flight
You can see that the temperatures throughout the image are much more consistent than the sunrise flight. The reflective metal roof stays relatively cool throughout the day while the others heat up at a similar rate to the ground.

Our last flight of the day was at 7pm. At this point in the day, the land and buildings are starting to cool off. We wanted to collect data at this time to see which parts of the area retain the most heat and which parts cool off the fastest.
7pm Thermal flight
In this image, 3 of the buildings are about the same temperature as the ground and 2 of them are cooler than the ground. This is due to the reflective metal roof not absorbing as much heat from the sun. The fire in the top middle building can be seen again. The rock driveway remains warmer than the rest of the surrounding ground throughout the entire day.

Overall, The group gathered some relatively good data this week at PWA. Our next plan of action is to do this same process at the amphitheater to see how the large concrete structure retains heat throughout the day compared to the land. We plan to use the same flight settings to maintain consistency throughout our project so that we can more easily compare the data that we collect.

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