Wildlife and conservation UAV missions using LRFs for enhanced sensor fusion

International wildlife smugglers, poachers and traders target more than 4000 species of animals and plants are targeted across 162 countries. The global trade in illegal wildlife has used digital technology to grow, leveraging a nearly untraceable network of online marketplaces. 

Wildlife response teams must use the most advanced technologies to counter the trade in sensitive and vulnerable species at their source in conservation areas. This makes wildlife monitoring, conservation and anti-poaching some of the most rewarding and urgent applications for UAVs with advanced EO/IR sensor payloads, enabling response teams to better track and protect animals, whilst also disrupting poachers. 

 

Seeing things that want to be unseen 

Species diversity is crucial to sustaining a balanced and thriving global ecology, supporting biomes and ensuring a megafauna legacy for future generations. An issue for wildlife and conservation response teams is that both the threats and, animals requiring protection, prioritize camouflage and are extraordinarily aware of being tracked.

Some of the most endangered or threatened species are thinly distributed and can be hidden in dense jungle or bush cover. Or deep in the recesses of ravines and crags. Ground teams struggle to sweep and cover many conservation terrain areas, creating the need for a UAV’s aerial perspective to cover huge areas more efficiently and accurately. 

To discover, track and coordinate any intervention with a vulnerable rhino, or the threats trying to intercept it, the UAV team needs to harness deep sensor fusion, comprising of infrared cameras for body heat detection at night, visual spectrum cameras for daytime operation and an accurate laser rangefinder to assist with targeting and focusing. The complementary nature of an EO/IR sensor payload is crucial, with a gimbal-integrated laser rangefinder (LRF) being invaluable for achieving true sensor fusion.

 

Clarity and decoding camouflage

When a wildlife and conservation UAV team is tracking a skittish rhino, with its excellent hearing, or approaching poachers, who are hyper-alert to their surroundings, stealth is crucial. 

The mission success of a conservation, wildlife monitoring or anti-poaching team is greatly enhanced if their UAV can create situational awareness and tracking without being observed. For UAVs operating in the wildlife and conservation role, higher flight altitudes and hover heights reduce sound signature or the risk of visual recognition. A longer-ranger LRF helps to keep track of terrain and areas of interest at those higher operational altitudes. 

Gimbal-integrated LRFs with longer ranges also help response teams discover, identify, and confirm animals of threats. The wildlife and conservation UAV mission can be daunting because of animals’ natural ability to camouflage and conceal in their habitat. Add challenging lighting conditions to this issue, which can create problems for a UAV’s camera to focus clearly on an animal or threat. 

Camera lenses need contrast to achieve clarity of focus. In terrain with low contrast or where animals use camouflage for concealment, the camera system has almost no differentiating contrast to focus on. This can become even more troublesome at longer distances because focus issues are magnified by focal length. 

A gimbal-integrated LRF supports camera-focusing clarity in challenging lighting conditions, assisting wildlife and conservation UAV operators in confirming where animals might be hiding. The gimbal-integrated LRF partners with the camera by generating extremely accurate distance data. 

Using the LRF’s distance data, the UAV’s camera’s focusing system can immediately adjust and create clarity of focus on an area being viewed, even if it lacks contrast or contains a lot of harsh lighting. This sensor fusion between LRF’s distance measurement and camera focusing enhances the UAV response team’s situational awareness with a clear image of what they need to see. It’s one of the best and most relatable examples of a UAV’s complementary sensor fusion between LRF and cameras, making a difference in real-world wildlife and conservation missions.

 

Accuracy and awareness

The best wildlife and conservation UAVs feature EO/IR sensor payloads that enable all the sensor fusion required to have superior situational awareness to make real-time decisions that make a difference. 

When a conservation and wildlife first response team is responding to a poaching threat or needs to urgently track an animal in medical distress for a veterinary intervention, the depth and distance measurement capabilities of gimbal-integrated longer-range LRFs make the difference between locating or losing animals.

With a high-performance LRF integrated as part of the UAV’s EO/IR gimbal payload, response teams have the advantage of knowing where they need to go. The LRF creates incredibly accurate distance measurements of objects and animals in terrain. These depth and distance measurements combine with the UAV’s onboard GPS functionality to create accurate localization coordinates. This shareable localization data keeps the advantage of stealth and safety with a ground team, when urgently navigating to an injured animal for veterinary assistance or incepting a nearing poaching threat. 

Retaining the element of stealth and surprise when guiding a response team to an injured animal or intercepting a poaching risk, is paramount for ground teams. UAV’s configured with a longer-range gimbal-integrated LRF as part of their sensor payload, are irreplaceable for creating the sensor fusion that wildlife and conservation teams need.