SUAVe: The Semi-autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle system developed by Vanderbilt and Aurora Flight ServicesPeruvian test flight could herald leap forward in site mapping
Often it can take years to survey and map an archaeological site. However, this could be reduced to a matter of minutes if tests under way in Peru – carried out by Vanderbilt University – go according to plan.
The Aurora Flight Sciences unmanned aerial vehicle will be integrated into a larger system that combines a flying device that can fit into a backpack, with a software system that can choose an optimal flight pattern and transform the resulting data into three-dimensional maps. The project is an interdisciplinary collaboration between Vanderbilt archaeologist Steven Wernke and engineering professor Julie A. Adams.
They call it SUAVe – Semi-autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle. It was partially financed by an Interdisciplinary Discovery Grant from Vanderbilt.
Easy to use and fast
“It can take two or three years to map one site in two dimensions,” Wernke said. “The SUAVe (pronounced SWAH-vey) system should transform how we map large sites that take several seasons to document using traditional methods. It will provide much higher resolution imagery than even the best satellite imagery, and it will produce a detailed three-dimensional model.” The SUAVe system is compact and is designed to be easy to use.
“You will unpack it, specify the area that you need it to cover and then launch it,” Wernke said. “When it completes capturing the images, it lands and the images are downloaded, matched into a large mosaic, and transformed into a map.”
The algorithms developed for the project allow the SUAVe system to specify the flight pattern to compensate for factors such as the wind speed, the angle of the sun and photographic details like image overlap and image resolution, Adams said.
“The only way for this system to be cost-effective is for it to be easy enough to operate that you don’t need an engineer on every site,” Adams said. “It has to be usable without on-site technical help.”
Ready for testing: Professor Julie Adams and Steven Henke with the SUAVe aerial device. Image Vanderbilt University
Tests in Peru
Tests are scheduled from mid July to mid August at the abandoned colonial era town of Mawchu Llacta in Peru, and there are plans to return next year after any issues that arise are addressed in the lab.
Built in the 1570s at a former Inca settlement and mysteriously abandoned in the 19th century, the village of Mawchu is a 45-minute hike for the team from the nearby village of Tuti. Mawchu Llacta is composed of standing architecture arranged in regular blocks covering about 25 football fields square.
“Archaeology is a spatial discipline,” Wernke said. “We depend on accurate documentation of not just what artefacts were used in a given time period, but how they were used in their cultural context. In this sense, SUAVe can provide a fundamental toolset of wide significance in archaeological research.”
Wernke hopes that the new technology will allow many archaeological sites to be catalogued very quickly, since many are being wiped away by development and time.
“The SUAVe system should be a way to create a digital archival registry of archaeological sites before it’s too late,” he said. “It will likely create the far more positive problem of having so much data that it will take some time go through it all properly.”
Source: Vanderbilt University
More Information
Link to image of Mawchu Llacta
Vanderbilt Univeristy College of Arts and Science
This is great – how could I get involved? I am an archaeology enthusiast.
I want that so fricking bad!