Beyond visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone operations for environmental and infrastructure monitoring: a case study in northwestern Canada

Abstract

Aerial drones typically operate over small geographic areas (<5 km2), yet environmental and infrastructure monitoring applications often require collection of data over larger areas. Challenges to drone deployments, in areas with people and frequent air traffic, include aviation regulations that require missions to adhere to within-visual-line-of-sight (VLOS) conditions, thereby limiting mission extents. The performance and fuel consumption of longer drone missions could justify investment to advance future beyond-visual-line-of-sight (BVLOS) data acquisitions. This work summarizes airspace deconfliction techniques, which allowed testing of BVLOS capabilities in relatively busy airspace in northwestern Canada. Drone missions were conducted with a Griffon SeaHunter capturing high resolution imagery covering more than 550 km2 along 6200 km of flight lines, increasing conventional drone data coverage by two orders of magnitude. BVLOS hourly endurance was nearly double relative to light aviation mapping aircraft, providing a suitable range for extended monitoring operations (1,000-1,200 km). Fuel consumption (L/100km) also differed substantially, with SeaHunter using 9 % to 16 % of conventional mapping aircraft (84% to 91% savings). Finally we summarize lessons learned to further stimulate BVLOS adoption internationally. Opportunities will arise as BVLOS drones will increasingly be operated within a global context of transitions towards low-carbon emission economies.