Galileo Group Completes Environmental UAS Imaging Over Florida Keys

By Danielle Lucey

Melbourne, Fla.-based Galileo Group has completed a hyperspectral imaging project of the Florida Keys using unmanned aerial systems.



The program, run through a NASA grant called the High-Resolution Assessment of Carbon Dynamics in Seagrass and Coral Reef Biomes, looks at the photosynthetic production of sea grass beds and how it may be an indicator of changes in the ecosystem over time. The grant was awarded to the UAV Collaborative, a Silicon Valley.



Galileo a converted and integrated the sensor onto a UAV, but also flew a manned aircraft with a hyperspectral imager as a cross-reference. The findings of the study will be released in May. 



"This is the first time large scale UAV-based hyperspectral data has been collected for environmental purposes in Florida," says Dr. Zhihong Pan, Galileo Group director of research, who led the effort for the company.  "Given the timeline requested by the customer, we had to move rapidly to integrate the sensor into the UAV nose cone, develop autonomous control software from scratch and go straight from a short NASA test certification to large scale open-water science collection.”



The team flew for five days, with a total flight time of 12 hours aggregated.



Galileo Group plans to maintain the program with NASA and the UAV Collaborative so it can continue this type of hyperspectral imaging for environmental research customers, the company said in a press release.