Solar-powered UAV mission for agricultural decision support

Abstract

In September 2002, NASA's solar-powered Pathfinder-Plus UAV conducted a proof-of-concept mission over the 1500 ha plantation of the Kauai Coffee Company (KCC), Hawaii. While in U.S. National Airspace, the transponder-equipped UAV was supervised by Honolulu air traffic as a conventionally piloted aircraft. Two digital camera systems were housed in exterior-mounted environmental pods, and were controlled from a ground station established at plantation headquarters. During four hours on-station, the UAV exhibited the ability to navigate pre-planned flightlines, as well as perform spontaneous maneuvers to collect imagery in cloud-free areas. A line-of-sight (local area network) telemetry system using unlicensed radio frequency enabled rapid image download at rates exceeding 5 Mbit sec -1 . All images were thus available for viewing, enhancing, and printing within a few minutes of collection. During the latter part of the mission, the payload was operated over an established wide area network by an operator located on the U.S. mainland at a distance of 4000 km. The mission demonstrated the ability of a solar-powered UAV, equipped with downsized imaging systems, to monitor a localized region for an extended time period and deliver high-resolution imagery on demand. I. INTRODUCTION