Initiative
Expand the use of drones for surveillance of bushfires, rangeland and biodiversity monitoring.
Overview
Examine the potential to expand the use of commercial drones to provide effective and safe surveillance of bushfires as well as exploring their enhanced use in our Rangelands and Biodiversity divisions.
Benefits
The expanded use of drones for bushfire surveillance, rangeland and biodiversity monitoring would provide a safer, cheaper and more responsive alternative to helicopters currently used for this purpose.
2020 progress update
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are being used by the Rangeland Division for a number of applications including using machine learning techniques to obtain estimates of mangrove foliage cover from UAS imagery of Darwin Harbour and monitoring program and for surveillance of weeds (Salvinia molesta) in wetland environments.