2018/07/06 by Claire Burke, Burke, Claire, Maisie Rashman +11
Engineering · Environmental Science · #Applied Physics (physics.app-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Impact of Light on Environment and Health #Infrared Target Detection Methodologies #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM) #UAV Applications and Optimization
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1807.03157
openalex publication_date 2018/07/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Using thermal infrared detectors mounted on drones, and applying techniques\nfrom astrophysics, we hope to support the field of conservation ecology by\ncreating an automated pipeline for the detection and identification of certain\nendangered species and poachers from thermal infrared data. We test part of our\nsystem by attempting to detect simulated poachers in the field. Whilst we find\nthat we can detect humans hiding in the field in some types of terrain, we also\nfind several environmental factors that prevent accurate detection, such as\nambient heat from the ground, absorption of infrared emission by the\natmosphere, obscuring vegetation and spurious sources from the terrain. We\ndiscuss the effect of these issues, and potential solutions which will be\nrequired for our future vision for a fully automated drone-based global\nconservation monitoring system.\n