Advancements in Forest Fire Prevention: A Comprehensive Survey

Nowadays, the challenges related to technological and environmental development are becoming increasingly complex. Among the environmentally significant issues, wildfires pose a serious threat to the global ecosystem. The damages inflicted upon forests are manifold, leading not only to the destruction of terrestrial ecosystems but also to climate changes. Consequently, reducing their impact on both people and nature requires the adoption of effective approaches for prevention, early warning, and well-coordinated interventions. This document presents an analysis of the evolution of various technologies used in the detection, monitoring, and prevention of forest fires from past years to the present. It highlights the strengths, limitations, and future developments in this field. Forest fires have emerged as a critical environmental concern due to their devastating effects on ecosystems and the potential repercussions on the climate. Understanding the evolution of technology in addressing this issue is essential to formulate more effective strategies for mitigating and preventing wildfires.

Characterizing Lift, Drag, and Pressure Differences across Wandering Salamanders (Aneides vagrans) with Computational Fluid Dynamics to Investigate Aerodynamics

Wandering salamanders (Aneides vagrans), known to occupy the crowns of old growth coast redwood trees, have recently been found to decelerate and engage in controlled, non-vertical descent while falling. Closely related, nonarboreal species with seemingly minor morphological differences exhibit far less behavioral control while falling; however, the influence of salamander morphology on aerodynamics remains to be tested. Here, we examine differences in morphology and aerodynamics of two salamander species, A. vagrans and the nonarboreal ensatina salamander (Ensatina eschscholtzii), using a combination of traditional and contemporary techniques. Specifically, we compare morphometrics statistically, then use computational fluid dynamics (CFD) to characterize predicted airflow and pressure over digitally reconstructed models of the salamanders. While similar in body and tail lengths, A. vagrans are more dorsoventrally flattened with longer limbs and greater surface area of the foot relative to body size than the nonarboreal E. eschscholtzii. CFD results show dorsoventral pressure gradients differ between the two digitally reconstructed salamanders resulting in lift coefficients of approximately 0.02 and 0.00, and lift:drag ratios of approximately 0.40 and 0.00 for A. vagrans and E. eschscholtzii, respectively. We conclude that the morphology of A. vagrans is better suited for controlled descent than that of the closely related E. eschscholtzii and highlight the importance of subtle morphological features, such as dorsoventral flatness, foot size, and limb length, for aerial control. That our simulation reports align with real-world performance data underscores the benefits of CFD for studying the link between morphology and aerodynamics in other taxa. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Monitoring and Identification of Road Construction Safety Factors via UAV

The safety of road construction is one of the most important concerns of construction managers for the following reasons: long-span construction operation, no fixed monitoring cameras, and huge impacts on existing traffic, while the managers still rely on manual inspection and a lack of image records. With the fast development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and Artificial Intelligence (AI), monitoring safety concerns of road construction sites becomes easily accessible. This research aims to integrate UAVs and AI to establish a UAV-based road construction safety monitoring platform. In this study, road construction safety factors including constructors, construction vehicles, safety signs, and guardrails are defined and monitored to make up for the lack of image data at the road construction site. The main findings of this study include three aspects. First, the flight and photography schemes are proposed based on the UAV platform for information collection for road construction. Second, deep learning algorithms including YOLOv4 and DeepSORT are utilized to automatically detect and track safety factors. Third, a road construction dataset is established with 3594 images. The results show that the UAV-based monitoring platform can help managers with security inspection and recording images.

Where the Methane Is-Insights from Novel Airborne LiDAR Measurements Combined with Ground Survey Data

Airborne LiDAR measurements, parallel controlled releases, and on-site optical gas imaging (OGI) survey and pneumatic device count data from 1 year prior, were combined to derive a new measurement-based methane inventory for oil and gas facilities in British Columbia, Canada. Results reveal a surprising distinction in the higher magnitudes, different types, and smaller number of sources seen by the plane versus OGI. Combined data suggest methane emissions are 1.6-2.2 times current federal inventory estimates. More importantly, analysis of high-resolution geo-located aerial imagery, facility schematics, and equipment counts allowed attribution to major source types revealing key drivers of this difference. More than half of emissions were attributed to three main sources: tanks (24%), reciprocating compressors (15%), and unlit flares (13%). These are the sources driving upstream oil and gas methane emissions, and specifically, where emerging regulations must focus to achieve meaningful reductions. Pneumatics accounted for 20%, but this contribution is lower than recent Canadian and U.S. inventory estimates, possibly reflecting a growing shift toward more low- and zero-emitting devices. The stark difference in the aerial and OGI results indicates key gaps in current inventories and suggests that policy and regulations relying on OGI surveys alone may risk missing a significant portion of emissions.

A Review on Early Forest Fire Detection Systems Using Optical Remote Sensing

The environmental challenges the world faces nowadays have never been greater or more complex. Global areas covered by forests and urban woodlands are threatened by natural disasters that have increased dramatically during the last decades, in terms of both frequency and magnitude. Large-scale forest fires are one of the most harmful natural hazards affecting climate change and life around the world. Thus, to minimize their impacts on people and nature, the adoption of well-planned and closely coordinated effective prevention, early warning, and response approaches are necessary. This paper presents an overview of the optical remote sensing technologies used in early fire warning systems and provides an extensive survey on both flame and smoke detection algorithms employed by each technology. Three types of systems are identified, namely terrestrial, airborne, and spaceborne-based systems, while various models aiming to detect fire occurrences with high accuracy in challenging environments are studied. Finally, the strengths and weaknesses of fire detection systems based on optical remote sensing are discussed aiming to contribute to future research projects for the development of early warning fire systems.

Novel Aerial Manipulator for Accurate and Robust Industrial NDT Contact Inspection: A New Tool for the Oil and Gas Inspection Industry

There is a strong demand in the oil and gas industry to develop alternatives to manual inspection. This paper presents AeroX, a novel aerial robotic manipulator that provides physical contact inspection with unprecedented capabilities. AeroX has a semi-autonomous operation, which provides interesting advantages in contact inspection. In the free-flight mode, the pilot guides the robot until performing contact with its end-effector on the surface to be inspected. During contact, AeroX is in its fully-autonomous global navigation satellite system (GNSS)-free contact–flight mode, in which the robot keeps its relative position w.r.t. the surface contact point using only its internal sensors. During autonomous flight, the inspector can move—with uninterrupted contact—the end-effector on the surface for accurately selecting the points where to perform A-scan measurements or continuous B-scan or C-scan inspections. AeroX adopts an eight-tilted rotor configuration and a simple and efficient design, which provides high stability, maneuverability, and robustness to rotor failure. It can perform contact inspection on surfaces at any orientation, including vertical, inclined, horizontal-top or horizontal-bottom, and its operation can be easily integrated into current maintenance operations in many industries. It has been extensively validated in outdoor experiments including a refinery and has been awarded the EU Innovation Radar Prize 2017.

Reliability and Maintenance Analysis of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper focuses on the development of a new logistic approach based on reliability and maintenance assessment, with the final aim of establishing a more efficient interval for the maintenance activities for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV). In the first part, we develop an architectural philosophy to obtain a more detailed reliability evaluation; then, we study the intrinsic reliability at the design stage in order to avoid severe critical issues in the UAV. In the second part, we compare different maintenance philosophies for UAVs and develop the concepts of preventive and corrective maintenance that consider the system subjected (until real “hard failure”) to partial performance degradation (“soft failure”). Finally, by evaluation of the uncertainty through the confidence interval, we determine the new soft failure limits, taking into account the general knowledge of the systems and subsystems in order to guarantee the proper preventive maintenance interval.

Ballistic Beloniformes attacking through Snell's Window

Needlefishes (Beloniformes) were observed employing a range of stalking and attacking behaviours to attack schools of bait fishes ranging from the use of tactics common to predatory fishes to a novel behaviour: the use of leaping, aerial attacks. These aerial attacks are suggested to serve two purposes: to extend the attack range of the needlefishes and to reduce their prey's potential for evasion. Furthermore, a third purpose is hypothesized that the needlefishes are taking advantage of Snell's Window, an optical effect which may mask their approach to their prey.

Differential effects of aging on spatial learning through exploratory navigation and map reading

It has been shown that abilities in spatial learning and memory are adversely affected by aging. The present study was conducted to investigate whether increasing age has equal consequences for all types of spatial learning or impacts certain types of spatial learning selectively. Specifically, two major types of spatial learning, exploratory navigation and map reading, were contrasted. By combining a neuroimaging finding that the medial temporal lobe (MTL) is especially important for exploratory navigation and a neurological finding that the MTL is susceptible to age-related atrophy, it was hypothesized that spatial learning through exploratory navigation would exhibit a greater decline in later life than spatial learning through map reading. In an experiment, young and senior participants learned locations of landmarks in virtual environments either by navigating in them in the first-person perspective or by seeing aerial views of the environments. Results showed that senior participants acquired less accurate memories of the layouts of landmarks than young participants when they navigated in the environments, but the two groups did not differ in spatial learning performance when they viewed the environments from the aerial perspective. These results suggest that spatial learning through exploratory navigation is particularly vulnerable to adverse effects of aging, whereas elderly adults may be able to maintain their map reading skills relatively well.

Surface Temperature Mapping of the University of Northern Iowa Campus Using High Resolution Thermal Infrared Aerial Imageries

The goal of this project was to map the surface temperature of the University of Northern Iowa campus using high-resolution thermal infrared aerial imageries. A thermal camera with a spectral bandwidth of 3.0-5.0 μm was flown at the average altitude of 600 m, achieving ground resolution of 29 cm. Ground control data was used to construct the pixel- to-temperature conversion model, which was later used to produce temperature maps of the entire campus and also for validation of the model. The temperature map then was used to assess the building rooftop conditions and steam line faults in the study area. Assessment of the temperature map revealed a number of building structures that may be subject to insulation improvement due to their high surface temperatures leaks. Several hot spots were also identified on the campus for steam pipelines faults. High-resolution thermal infrared imagery proved highly effective tool for precise heat anomaly detection on the campus, and it can be used by university facility services for effective future maintenance of buildings and grounds.