Department of Animal Biology, Plant Biology and Ecology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Institute Baguaçu of Biodiversity Research, São Luís, Brazil.
PLoS One. 2021 Aug 13;16(8):e0255559. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255559. eCollection 2021.
Despite the proved usefulness of drones in biodiversity studies, acquisition costs and difficulties in operating, maintaining and repairing these systems constrain their integration in conservation projects, particularly for low-income countries. Here we present the steps necessary to build a low-cost fixed-wing drone for environmental applications in large areas, along with instructions to increase the reliability of the system and testing its performance. Inspired by DIY (Do It Yourself) and open source models, this work prioritizes simplicity and accounts for cost-benefit for the researcher. The DIY fixed-wing drone developed has electric propulsion, can perform pre-programmed flight, can carry up to 500 g payload capacity with 65 minutes flight duration and flies at a maximum distance of 20 km. It is equipped with a RGB (Red, Green and Blue) sensor capable of obtaining 2.8 cm per pixel Ground Sample Distance (GSD) resolution at a constant altitude of 100 m above ground level (AGL). The total cost was $995 which is substantially less than the average value of similar commercial drones used in biodiversity studies. We performed 12 flight tests in auto mode using the developed model in protected areas in Brazil, obtaining RGB images that allowed us to identify deforestation spots smaller than 5 m2 and medium-sized animals. Building DIY drones requires some technical knowledge and demands more time than buying a commercial ready-to-fly system, but as proved here, it can be less expensive, which is often crucial in conservation projects.
尽管无人机在生物多样性研究中已经被证明非常有用，但购置成本以及操作、维护和修理这些系统的困难限制了它们在保护项目中的整合，特别是在低收入国家。在这里，我们介绍了为环境应用构建低成本固定翼无人机所需的步骤，以及增加系统可靠性和测试其性能的说明。受 DIY（自己动手做）和开源模型的启发，这项工作优先考虑简单性，并考虑了研究人员的成本效益。所开发的 DIY 固定翼无人机采用电动推进，能够执行预编程飞行，可携带 500 克有效载荷，飞行时间长达 65 分钟，最大飞行距离为 20 公里。它配备了一个 RGB（红、绿、蓝）传感器，能够在离地 100 米的恒定高度获得 2.8 厘米/像素的地面采样距离（GSD）分辨率。总成本为 995 美元，远低于用于生物多样性研究的类似商业无人机的平均价值。我们在巴西的保护区使用所开发的模型进行了 12 次自动飞行测试，获得了 RGB 图像，这些图像使我们能够识别小于 5 平方米的森林砍伐点和中型动物。构建 DIY 无人机需要一些技术知识，并且比购买商用现成系统需要更多的时间，但正如这里所证明的，它可以更便宜，这在保护项目中通常是至关重要的。
