Grant: Research Tools and Instruments

The goal of this NSERC RTI grant is to establish a new research laboratory at Western called the Western Interdisciplinary Drone Laboratory (WIDL). The requested equipment will support the research programs of one senior (Osinski) and three junior (Goda, Molnar, Neish) faculty in the Department of Earth Sciences as well as several others from across campus. As demonstrated by the fact that we have 2 male (Osinski, Goda) and 2 female (Molnar, Neish) applicants, diversity in team composition is, and will continue to be, an intentional consideration in building the expertise of the research team. ******This equipment will enable cutting-edge new research to be conducted, across a broad range of topics, with a focus on the following 4 areas: 1) comparative planetology, periglacial geomorphology, post-disaster earthquake surveys, Precambrian geology, and seismic microzonation. In addition, this equipment will also support research by other faculty members at Western in the areas of archaeology, crop disease detection, hydrology, and mineral exploration. These disparate fields have a common theme which is field science in often remote, inaccessible and/or dangerous environments. Cross-cutting products required by the applicants include digital elevation models (DEMs), high-resolution imagery, and compositional information on surface deposits and rocks.******Once reliant on a “boots on the ground approach”, an increasingly common method is to collect data remotely this epitomizes the rapidly expanding field of remote sensing. Historically, remote sensing has entailed the use of satellite imagery or airborne surveys collected from helicopters and airplanes, which is expensive and difficult to acquire in real-time. Due to recent technological advancements, there has been an explosion of the development and use of small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones. The use of drones will revolutionize data collection for the applicants' field research programs. They will allow for the collection of low-cost data in real-time; quick access to sites where access is hazardous to people and/or wheeled vehicles (e.g., large-scale landslides, cliffs/gorges, blocky lava flows, etc.); and they can be easily transported and used anywhere in the world. In summary, these lightweight portable platforms provide a bird's eye view of a field site in an on-demand, low-cost, remotely deployable platform. The equipment requested here includes fixed-wing drones to enable rapid coverage of large areas, and quadcopters, which have higher lift capacity to carry additional payloads and have increased manoeuvrability for mapping areas at low altitudes. Requested sensors include visible and multispectral cameras, and LiDAR. In addition to representing a paradigm shift in research at Western, the acquisition of this equipment will significantly enhance the quality and extent of training by providing unique new opportunities for students to receive hands-on training in remote sensing.