Empowering coastal engineers and scientists with unmanned systems

The increasing availability of commercial off-the-shelf unmanned systems is placing powerful data acquisition tools within reach of scientists and engineers engaged in coastal management, restoration, and remediation. Two diverse use cases are presented here which showcase the effectiveness of combined mapping by Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) and Unmanned Surface Vessel (USV) to generate orthomosaic imagery and 3D digital surface models of subaqueous/subaerial terrain in low-lying and intertidal settings. These examples include combined UAS structure from motion (SfM) photogrammetry and USV single-beam sonar bathymetry: (1) to inform remedial design alternatives at an intertidal mudflat cleanup site in Class B airspace; and (2) to generate stage-storage relationships for low-lying lakes subject to increased flooding with sea-level rise and coastal storms. The common thread among these and other similar scale projects is that all data were collected and processed in-house by staff scientists or engineers engaged in the projects. Furthermore, if not for the reduced cost, ease of mobilization, and reduced response time of the unmanned systems, the datasets would not have been collected, and the sites would not have benefited from critical information. Several themes will be highlighted through discussion of the case examples: The versatility of unmanned platforms creates new options for monitoring complex sites with challenging or unsafe access. Combining traditionally separate data types through a common workflow (e.g. multi-parameter aerial and aquatic surveys) leads to a synoptic understanding of processes occurring at a site by introducing multiple lines of evidence to support observations. Commercially available turn-key systems help to simplify mission planning and data acquisition, allowing researchers to focus on the problem rather than the details of operating the equipment. Unmanned tools are easily integrated into existing data-management systems by utilizing standard software to process and manipulate sensor-specific or geospatial data