About the UAS Federation
Uncrewed Aircraft Systems (UAS) represent an evolving and important set of tools for Earth and environmental science and engineering. While low-cost UAS can be acquired and operated by individual PIs for simple surveying or photography, very high-resolution observation using advanced sensors is often out of the reach for most researchers. In response, five National Science Foundation (NSF) supported Earth Science Instrument Facilities (IF: NCALM, EarthScope, NHERI-RAPID, OpenTopography and CTEMPS) support some level of UAS instrumentation, data-related activities, or training. To date, however, these efforts have been largely independent and, in many cases, not clearly understood by our respective science and engineering communities.
Between the five IFs, we have over 35 aircraft (6 heavy lift airframes, 7 medium lift and at least 23 light duty airframes along with a broad range of remote sensing systems (lidar, airborne magnetics, hyperspectral, multispectral, thermal and albedo, as well as numerous cameras with RGB capacity) and over 140 archived UAS datasets. Taken as a whole, we have an extensive and well-maintained fleet of aircraft, sensors, and software at the cutting edge of research-grade UAS remote sensing, and where there is redundancy, it can provide back-up in case of overbooking or sensor failure.
Beginning in 2023, these facilities have joined together to develop a Federation of UAS Instrument Facilities with capabilities to support UAS remote sensing for earth sciences and engineering. The consortium is designed to optimize the collective capabilities of the IFs, thus guiding researchers to appropriate technical capabilities to enable their science. We are developing a common UAS, Sensor and Data portal to provide users with a clear path to UAS platforms, sensors, FAIR data archiving resources, and expertise. More information, contacts and instrument requests will be available through our website in early 2024.
Members of the Federation
The founding members of the UAS Federation are CTEMPs, NCALM, EarthScope Consortium, OpenTopography and NHERI-RAPID.
The Centers for Transformative Environmental Monitoring Programs (CTEMPs) is an NSF-supported community user facility that first launched in 2009. CTEMPs’ development and technology support of fiber optic Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) serves the broad Earth Science community with a focus on surface and near surface processes. CTEMPs maintains a fleet of field deployable DTS systems, laboratory grade instruments, optical fiber inventory and support equipment, as well as an environmental sensor development laboratory(OPeNS) and recently, distributed acoustic sensing capability. CTEMPs is jointly operated by the University of Nevada, Reno, Oregon State University, the Desert Research Institute, and the Colorado School of Mines.
Beginning in 2013, CTEMPs recognized the growing demand in the hydrology and geomorphology community for UAS technologies. This began with a focus in airborne imagery for topographic analysis through the emerging technologies of Structure from Motion (SfM). In these early days, operation of UAS for research purposes in the United States initially required extensive training and licensing requirements and CTEMPs developed capabilities to provide complete “turnkey” projects beginning with mission planning, permitting, mission operation, data collection and processing. As requirements evolved, CTEMPs has continued to provide aircraft, sensors and licensed UAS operators for researchers, as well as training, mission planning and support services for researchers with previous experience with UAS. Missions were typically completed with custom build medium lift UAS.
CTEMPs has expanded its sensing and aircraft service since these early days. Sensing capabilities now include thermal imaging, multispectral imaging with a focus on vegetation mapping and airborne magnetometry focusing on geothermal and mineral resources research. The UAS fleet now primarily consists of commercially available aircraft, primarily DJI aircraft.
CTEMPs instrumentation is available to all not-for-profit research efforts, with priority given to NSF-supported research. Sensors and aircraft are typically leased on a per day basis and based on availability and include a licensed operator. Sensors can be made available to researchers with prior experience and/or training in some circumstances.
The NSF created the National Center for Airborne Laser Mapping (NCALM) to support the use of airborne laser mapping technology (lidar) for the scientific community in 2003. NCALM is operated jointly by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Houston, and the Department of Earth & Planetary Science, University of California, Berkeley. NCALM operates a variety of airborne sensors, including an Airborne Laser Swath Mapping (ALSM) system based at the UH Geosensing Imaging & Mapping Laboratory.
Research-grade ALSM data can be used to produce highly accurate, three-dimensional, digital topographic maps of large areas of land surface. The major component of a mapping system is a laser that emits hundreds of thousands of short pulses of light per second. The laser is mounted in an aircraft, and the laser pulses are directed toward the ground by a scanning mirror. The resulting set of latitudes, longitudes, and heights of many millions of points is then transformed into a highly accurate map. NCALM also maintains airborne thermal, multispectral and hyperspectral imagers and synthetic aperture radar systems designed to be flown on either fixed wing or rotary crewed aircraft.
NCALM has also developed lidar instrumentation and subsequent data processing for UAS platforms. The instrumentation is designed to be flown on heavy lift multirotor UAS through a partnership with The US Army Corps of Engineers Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab (USACE-CRREL). Remote sensing capacity through CRREL can also provide UAS acquired thermal and hyperspectral measurements.
NCALM supports NSF research through the competitive NSF grant review process. NSF-supported researchers must contact NCALM during proposal preparation to obtain guidance on cost estimates, scheduling, and related issues. Once funded, PIs and their students will be able to participate in all phases of the work. NCALM also supports non-NSF funded research through the Geosensing Lab at the University of Houston.
Earthscope (formerly University NavStar Consortium or UNAVCO) was launched in 2023 to initially provide high precision Global Position Systems (GPS) to the Earth Science community with a focus on geodesy and seismology. Recently, UNAVCO and IRIS have merged to form the EarthScope Consortium, with capability to provide individual researchers and large multi-investigator efforts state of the art GPS/GNNS systems, a wide range of seismology instrumentation and PI experiment support. Earthscope also is NSF's primary facility for terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), with eight systems available for PI projects.
EarthScope provides Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) support to Earth science researchers and maintains a pool of small unmanned aerial vehicles (sUAS’s), as well as supporting field equipment (e.g., GPS systems, ground control, communications equipment), software, and staff trained in best practices for operation of these systems. Currently Earthscope UAS are designed for topographic mapping via SfM and consists of six aircraft and two sensors. EarthScope UAS staff maintain FAA certification for UAS operation within the National Airspace. In addition, EarthScope is responsible for managing all UAS operations associated with the US Antarctic Program.
Over the past several years, UNAVCO has developed a growing program that involves bringing UAS systems to geology field camps throughout the West. UAS is an emerging technology useful for science communication, education, and demonstration for experts, students and the general public.
Researchers and educators interested in utilizing EarthScope UAS resources are encouraged to contact EarthScope for additional information. EarthScope supports UAS project planning, proposal preparation (including budgets and letters of support), instrumentation and field data collection, data processing, and online archiving of data. At this time, interested researchers can submit a Project Support Request and also can access existing data sets through our web portal. Funding for engineering and proposal preparation support is provided by the NSF as part of the core Enabling Discoveries in Multiscale Earth System Dynamics: Geodetic Facility for the Advancement of Geoscience (GAGE) facility Cooperative Agreement between EarthScope and the NSF.
OpenTopography is an NSF-supported community data facility designed to provide efficient access to topography data, tools, and resources to advance our understanding of the Earth’s surface, vegetation, and built environment. OpenTopography is based at the San Diego Supercomputer Center at the University of California San Diego and is operated in collaboration with the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University and the EarthScope Consortium (formerly UNAVCO).
The mission of the OpenTopography Facility is to Democratize online access to regional, global, and high-resolution, Earth science-oriented, topography data acquired with lidar, radar and photogrammetry technologies, provide value-added tools for discovery, access, processing, and visualization on top of topography-based Open Data collections in the cloud and provide professional training and expert guidance in data management, processing and analysis.
While OpenTopography does not provide UAS equipment, it is a critical link between data collection, data archiving, processing, and access. OpenTopography provides a platform for community members to upload and publish UAS collected topographic data products (e.g., point clouds, DEMs, and imagery) in a FAIR-compliant workflow resulting in a digital object identifier (DOI) to enable data citation and reuse.
OpenTopography also provides value-added data discovery, federated access, and processing services on open datasets like the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), NOAA Coastal lidar data, and Polar Geospatial Center’s ArcticDEM and Reference Elevation Model of Antarctica (REMA) 2m data to the academic community free of charge. All open-source software algorithms and tools developed by OpenTopography are distributed via our GitHub. OpenTopography’s GitHub is also available to host software developed by our partners and the Earth science user community.
The RAPID Facility, a Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) network component, enables the natural hazards and disaster research communities to conduct advanced, rapid-response field reconnaissance investigations and perishable data collection. These studies characterize extreme events' physical, environmental, social, and health impacts. The high-resolution datasets are openly available through Designsafe-CI, serving a variety of scientific and engineering purposes. This data is critical in informing high-fidelity simulation models, facilitating performance assessments, and conducting post-event economic, policy, and health analyses. Since commencing field operations in 2018, the RAPID Facility has helped numerous teams and research organizations to investigate over 100 extreme events worldwide, including major earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, floods, volcanic eruptions, and landslides.
The RAPID Facility maintains a comprehensive portfolio of over 300 portable, rugged, high-resolution instruments ready for cross-disciplinary field data collection. These instruments support engineering, natural and social science, and health data collection. Some of the most popular instruments are quadcopter and fixed-wing UAS systems capable of collecting data with high-resolution cameras, lidar, and multispectral sensors. UAS-based data is used for hazard mapping, damage assessment, deformation monitoring, and 3D digital modeling.
The RAPID Facility supports a range of training and instructional initiatives designed to educate researchers on the effective use of field instrumentation in perishable data collection and reconnaissance investigations. Its flagship training event, the RAPID hands-on intensive training workshop, is held annually in July at our headquarters in Seattle, WA. Personalized one-on-one and small group training sessions are available both in-person and online for Facility users.
The RAPID Facility offers special programs to engage both graduate and undergraduate students. The Graduate Student Scholars program aims to broaden the community of researchers in natural hazards and disaster studies. The RAPID Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program invites two to three undergraduate students from across the nation to our headquarters in Seattle each summer for an immersive research experience.
