'World Cup of drones' offers $1m for innovative uses of unmanned aircraft

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/06/world-cup-of-drones-dubai-unmanned-aircraft

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Drones have a PR problem. Even as private ownership of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) continues to grow, the public has been slow to embrace them. One study found some 73% of Americans wanted regulations on drones, while 42% said they opposed private ownership outright.

In 2014, 36 states took up legislation governing drones, and the deadline for the US to impose federal regulations is near – the Federal Aviation Authority Modernization and Reform Act expires in September.

In such an atmosphere, the notion of “drones for good” may seem somewhat counterintuitive. It is, though, the guiding principle of an international competition launched by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice-president and prime minister of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of Dubai.

The year-long contest, which organizers dubbed the “World Cup of drones”, sought entries from contestants looking to put drones to positive use. It garnered more than 800 submissions from 57 countries.

On Friday and Saturday, in Dubai, 19 semi-finalists will present their work to judges and investors from around the world. The winner of the international competition will receive $1m.

Here are some of the most innovative contenders:

Park ranger drones, Spain

Poaching is a major issue in countries that are home to the world’s endangered species. Even in wildlife refuges and reserves, limited numbers of rangers are tasked with policing hundreds of acres, making it impossible to effectively protect the animals day and night.

Arnau Terrades has a plan: deploy fleets of UAVs equipped with cameras, infrared sensors and high-quality microphones to deliver bird’s-eye views of the forest in real time.

Such fleets would be supported by highly portable ground-support systems, requiring only a laptop, GPS, a communication system and extra batteries. Rangers would be able to launch drones via a car-powered catapult. The drones would use 3G technology to send position data back to the ground station and to communicate.

Sensing suspicious activity, a UAV would sound an alarm to home base, allowing rangers to stream real-time video and react more quickly, potentially saving the lives of endangered animals.

Drones to relieve slums, Kenya

In Kenya, nearly one-third of the population lives in urban areas. Of that group, 60% – about 7.8 million people – live in slums, crudely constructed structures often so tightly packed that they only allow for very narrow dirt roads. This makes it exceedingly difficult to deliver clean water, install adequate lighting and build sustainable sanitation systems. It also poses incredible obstacles to firefighters.

This is where David Kiarie’s drones come in. He proposes UAVs to fly above slums and capture spatial data – a way to map the areas and allow for better development planning as well as the delivery of much-needed supplies at a fairly low cost.

Kiarie hopes to provide government stakeholders with accurate, timely information attained by drones in order to fight poverty, save lives and improve quality of life.

Drones for search and rescue, Switzerland

In the wake of air crashes, earthquakes and other disasters, the first order of business is to search for survivors, a task that can be difficult and dangerous.

Rescue efforts in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown showed the limitations of using robots, so Patrick Thevoz and his team of Swiss engineers developed the world’s first drone that does not crash on impact and is safe to fly around humans. Encased in a kind of pliable honeycomb orb, the drones are able to roll across surfaces in order to gather optical and thermal data, which could allow more disaster survivors to get medical attention sooner.

Drones for reversing deforestation, UK

The planet’s forests are rapidly disappearing – and conventional reforestation is too costly and time consuming.

“We believe industrial-scale deforestation can only be countered with industrial-scale reforestation,” one team member says in a submission video.

After gathering terrain data to generate a 3D map of the environment, drones can plant biodegradable seed pods, suspended in nutrient-rich gel, at predetermined locations. The British team behind the drone says it has the capacity to plant a billion trees in a year.

Drones to detect land mines, Spain

Bosnia and Herzegovina has been at peace for almost 20 years, but 120,000 buried landmines still dot the country. Such mines have claimed more than 1,700 lives.

Using drone-detecting dogs or humans to find and remove mines is extremely slow and dangerous – so Marc Beltrán and his team want to employ drones to seek them out.

Mine-seeking drones would capture images of the landscape and run algorithms post-flight to calculate the chances that land mines are present. The team says trial runs have been successful.