Drone ecologies : Zità di Sasc

Drone Ecologies explores the use of drones to simultaneously read and recode/transform a winter landscape, using snow and ice as construction material. The transformation of the landscape aims at attracting the attention of the user pointing out new ways to explore the site. In this research project, different types of drones are employed to autonomously execute two different tasks: aerial surveying aerial material deposition Drones for aerial surveying are small and lightweight. They are equipped with a camera which is used to constantly scan/monitor the landscape. Drones for aerial material deposition are bigger and more powerful. These drones are equipped with a water tank, an air compressor, and an air atomizing nozzle. The photos taken by the smaller drones are transferred to a computer and used to extrapolate geo-referenced 3D point cloud data through photogrammetry. Generative algorithms process the 3D point cloud calculating the flow of water across the scanned environment. These “Flowlines” are converted to “Waypoints” and transferred to the drones employed for aerial material deposition. These drones autonomously fly the trajectories. Meanwhile, the air atomizing nozzle mounted underneath the drone and pointing vertically towards the ground, uses compressed air to break water down into fine droplets. As soon as the finely atomized mixture of water and compressed air is sprayed into the cold air, it freezes and builds snow crystals before touching the ground. The drones fly every single trajectory several times accumulating multiple layers of snow. While drones employed for material deposition continue to transform/recode the winter landscape creating more and more “Flow paths”, drones employed for aerial surveying constantly scan/monitor the landscape. The whole process is repeated over and over again.Matthias VinatzerUniversität Innsbruck, Masterarbeit, 2019(VLID)359672