The research team used public maps to help create an algorithm to plan the drones’ path along the canals.
Team Uses Drones To Inspect Irrigation Canals for Japanese Rice Farms
Kenji Shimada, professor of mechanical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, and his team of engineers
are using unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, to detect damage to agricultural water canals in a town in Niigata, an agricultural district on the northwest coast of Japan’s main island.
These canals are essential for the rice farming economy in the region and total approximately 40,000 kilometers throughout Japan.
40,000 kilometers are equivalent to the equatorial circumference of Earth, and the manual labor for inspecting and evaluating the condition of water canals is enormous,” Shimada said.
Using public maps and research data, the research team has formulated an algorithm to plan the drones’ path along the canals.
They can fly along canals of different sizes in multiple directions to record complete video of the walls for crack detection.
The type of commercial drone chosen for the project is limited to 30 minutes in the air and must stay within a range of a few kilometers from the remote controllers.
They are paired with parked cars nearby that provide batteries and coordinate to retrieve the drones when needed.
https://www.cmu.edu/news/stories/archives/2019/january/canal-drones.html