Images

Map of the Upper Feather River Watershed, including the watershed boundary (red), recent fire perimeters (2020 North Complex Fire, 2021 Dixie Fire), high elevation areas (> 2000 meters) and active stream gages (black triangles). More than 40% of the watershed has been burned since 2020. 

Sandy, the autonomous rover pictured, is a UxS integrated prototype platform intended to enable the BisonCore - a UASRC software suite - to mesh and operationalize numerous sensor inputs towards testing new UxS technology such as: navigationally integrated Collision Detection and Avoidance algorithms using AI/Computer Vision,  Companion Computer/Payload Derived

Logo for the USGS National Innovation Center                                                                                            &n

Logo for the 5th Federal UxS Workshop to be held at Moffett Field, California from September 13 to September 15, 2022. 

Liz Hyde (National Innovation Center) and Lillian Desmiter (Hawaiian Volcano Observatory) fly a DJI M600 as part of a Department of the Interior UAS Training Class

Infographic representing the outcomes from nearly 10 years of work by the USGS National Innovation Center including partnerships, patents, publications, and external funding. 

UAS Research Center's BisonCore Project, Autonomous Rover Sandy is equipped with a single board companion computer (with BisonCore installed), and various sensors useful for augmentation testing and development. 

USGS-Black Swift Team with Super Swift UAS, Dutch Harbor Airport, Aleutian Islands, Alaska. Left-to-right: Dale Ruckman, Jack Elston, Christoph Kern, Angie Diefenbach, Maciej Stachura, Matt Burgess, Andy Dietrick.

NASA SSERVI Lunar Regolith Lab's anorthosite mineral test bed located at Moffett Field, California                                     

UAS Engineer Isaac Anderson working on an airborne EO/IR Particle Image Velocimetry payload to measure stream velocity and discharge. 

UAS Research Center's BisonCore Project, augments an autonomous rover to avoid running into obstacles. Shown in picture; user set waypoint (2) that runs over a curb/barrier. CDA engaged and navigated south avoiding, and seeking a path around, the curb.

Solar-powered LoRa cellular gateway installed at Pepperwood Preserve to support water and soil moisture sensor deployments in the Santa Rosa, California area

EnviSense data-logger/transmitter developed by Carnegie Mellon University actively deployed with stage sensor at USGS streamgage at Beale Air Force Base near Marysville, California.     

USGS scientists Matt Gyves (left) and Jason Shvanda (center) deploying a low-cost, small uncrewed underwater vehicle (sUUV) to autonomously measure water quality parameters in the Delaware River with Ian Owen from Jaia Robotics (right).

USGS National Innovation Center's UAS Research Center BisonCore Project Equipment Identifying Marker

State-of-art, cavity-enhanced analyzer to help solve this long-standing technical problem in volcano science, adapted from an industrial instrument. The Off-Axis Integrated Cavity Output Spectroscopy (OA-ICOS) yields a several kilometer path length for absorption. Contains two near-IR tunable diode lasers and is field portable, fast, and precise.

Looking up at a drone hovering near an open-path methane analyzer mounted on a flux tower. Instruments mounted on both the towers and on the drones are measuring gases emitted from the soil.

A pilot flying a UAS on the beach.

The USGS along with the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) funded a pilot study to use a long-range AUV to study limnology of Lake Michigan. The AUV is pictured here being deployed in Lake Michigan to document variation in algae productivity at a whole-lake scale and compare 3-D spatial patterns in chlorophyll a to satellite estimates.

A UV camera measuring SO2 emissions from the 2009 dome of Redoubt Volcano, June 13, 2015.