Page 38 - GCN, June/July 2018

EMERGING TECH
A mosquito-hunting UAS
those weeds at bay, and a drone outfit- ted with a camera allows officials to track how well weed-killing solutions are working, Jackson said.
The district uses helicopters and fixed-wing planes to spray larvicide and insecticide around the county. In its application for the FAA program, the district outlined a plan that involves using 1,500-pound drones to help with spraying.
The drones would carry about 40
to 50 gallons of larvicide — much
less than the helicopters and planes carry, which means they won’t replace traditional aircraft anytime soon. But the drones could be useful for spraying the edges of controlled areas, Jackson said.
Many details have yet to be worked out, and any changes in technology or new uses of drones would have to be presented to the district’s commission- ers at their monthly meeting.
“The real benefit is it gives us a seat at the table...in terms of creating new regulations or removing regulations as [they pertain] to integrating drones into the airspace,” Jackson said. •
BY MATT LEONARD
Hunting mosquitos is a full-time job
in Florida. The Lee County Mosquito Control District has been doing it since 1958 using helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft to track and kill the disease- spreading pests.
The county began using two drones about a year ago for surveillance and is looking to expand its use of the unmanned aerial systems, said Eric Jackson, public information officer for the Mosquito Control District.
The district was recently chosen
to participate in the Federal Aviation Administration’s Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration Pilot Program, which will soon start testing drone applications that currently require waivers, such as flying beyond the line of sight or over people.
Lee County’s mosquito surveillance activities include regularly monitoring waterways for aquatic weeds where mosquito larvae are protected from predators. The district tries to keep
DOD wants drone delivery, too
On the battlefield, drones are typically used to get a remote view of enemy positions. Now Pentagon officials want ideas for how unmanned aerial systems could be used to deliver blood and medical supplies to treat wounded troops on the spot.
In a recent solicitation, the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental said it wants to be able to deliver a five-pound package over 100 kilometers in “austere environments,” suggesting that DIUx officials are considering an unmanned aerial system that supports refrigeration or other means of temperature control.
“These deliveries, ideally automated, will provide essential items to critically wounded military personnel as quickly as possible after an injury occurs,” the solicitation states. “Ability
to sustain a very high frequency of operations over an extended period of time is critical. Speed of delivery, reliability and robustness to failure and interference, response time, and overall delivery throughput are critical.”
Similar efforts are underway elsewhere in the Defense
Department. The Marine Corps’ Next Generation Logistics branch and DOD’s Rapid Reaction Technology Office, for example, recently tested the Hive Final Mile project, which seeks to resupply troops on the battlefield via drone (see GCN’s April/May issue).
That system includes a mobile application for placing orders, an automated drone launcher, software for determining what drone to fly and managing flight paths, and a cloud storage component for keeping track of all the flights and orders.
DIUx officials said they hope to field a system within two to three months.
— Adam Mazmanian
38 GCN JUNE/JULY 2018 • GCN.COM
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