Cohort Level: Cohort - V

Expected Graduation Date: May 13, 2022

Degree: B.E Civil Engineering

Research Title: Drone based environmental monitoring of soils

Research Synopsis: The overarching goal of this project is to provide practice and experience in applying UAS-mounted sensors drones for environmental monitoring in water and soil, including image interpretation and analysis. Specific objectives include: To determine specific spectral features corresponding to specific contaminants from the multispectral or hyperspectral images collected; to acquire pollution thematic maps; and to assess the accuracy of the results. Most images will be collected using a UAS (DJI Matrice 100) equipped with five bands multispectral sensor (MicaSense RedEdge). We will collect some images with a Nano-Hyperspec VNIR Turnkey Package on DJI M600 UAS with a LiDAR from Headwall Photonics. Particular attention will be given to pre-flight tasks (mission and flight planning, camera/sensor configuration); field operations (in-flight data collection and ground controls and radiometric calibration and correction; and post-processing tasks (geometric corrections, orthorectification and image mosaicking; calibration; and extracting relevant products/metrics for remote sensing environmental application). We will be using the trade-specific UAS software for pre-flight and field operations and processing of the raw data into calibrated ortho-rectified hyperspectral data. ENVI image analysis software (ENVI is an acronym for "Environment for Visualizing Images") will be used to process and analyze the calibrated geospatial imagery and extract relevant signatures of pollutants