In 2017, WeRobotics was one of more than 500 teams to compete in the MIT Solve Challenge on Youth, Skills and Workforce of the Future. Only 2% were selected as winners, and only 1% of all the applicants received dedicated funding from the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Atlassian Foundation. Our pitch focused on building the foundations of South Pacific Flying Labs. By winning the MIT Solve Award and securing funding from DFAT, Atlassian and the University of the South Pacific (USP), Pacific Flying Labs has been able to join our global and growing network of Flying Labs; including labs in Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda, Peru, Dominican Republic and soon Brazil, Panama, Senegal and Philippines. Pacific Flying Labs is the first of our labs to have a strong focus on preparing youths for the workforce of the future.
Pacific Labs is a joint collaboration with USP and the university’s Geospatial Sciences Program, which is where the lab is based. Amrita Lal, an alum of USP’s program, leads the work of Pacific Flying Labs from Fiji. In the weeks and months following our successful pitch to the MIT Solve Challenge, Amrita along with WeRobotics, USP faculty and volunteers organized two dedicated trainings and projects with youths from Fiji. Amrita and team also organized and ran the first ever drones for good conference in the South Pacific, bringing together key stakeholders from Fiji and the region to catalyze new partnerships for future projects. The youths who participated in the trainings and projects included young women and men from local schools and local orphanages. In addition, undergraduate students from USP also participated in trainings on campus. As part of this initiative, WeRobotics transferred 2 underwater drones and 2 aerial drones to South Pacific Flying Labs along with tablets and relevant software.
The first training and project focused on the use of marine robotics to study the health of coral reefs. Participants learned how to use underwater drones safely and effectively. They captured over an hour of underwater footage from a pier off Maui Bay. The following day, at the USP GIS Lab, they teamed up into groups and analyzed the footage. The groups learned to identify the different species of fish (particularly butterfly fish) and corals visible in the footage in order to assess the health of the corals. They also learned about how marine life is impacted by human activity including climate change. They subsequently created powerpoint slides and presented their findings and recommendations to each other. After their presentations, participants were trained on how to use aerial drones safely and effectively. This training was carried out at an approved field on USP campus. The women who participated in these trainings and projects ranged from 12 to 18 years in age and all but one were from a local orphanage.
The second training and project focused on the use of aerial drones for a disaster risk reduction at an informal settlement near USP campus. The training began with a lecture on the use of drones in disaster response. This training comprised both manual flights and automated flights. The latter taught participants how to program and supervise flight plans. Following this training, the youths worked with Pacific Flying Labs to map an informal settlement. Once the imagery was collected, participants returned to the lab to process and analyze the imagery. More specifically, they teamed up into groups to identify health risks, safety concerns and vulnerabilities to natural hazards. They subsequently created powerpoint slides and presented their findings and recommendations to each other. Their findings were subsequently shard with the Red Cross. Young men (aged 17-18) and one young woman (aged 17) participated in this second training and project. Some of the youths who participated in the marine training & project also joined the aerial robotics training & project.
Once the trainings and projects were completed, Pacific Flying Labs and WeRobotics met with key stakeholders and prospective partners to explore collaboration opportunities. This included meetings with the Australian Red Cross (pictured below), Fiji Red Cross, Secretariat of Pacific Communities (SPC), World Mosquito Program (WMP) and Suva Fire Service, for example.
In addition, live demos of cargo flights were given to both to the Civil Aviation Authority and to USP students and faculty (video below). Also, initial training on marine drones was provided to USP students at the swimming pool on campus. In total, 21 USP students joined our aerial and marine drone demos and lectures.
The first phase of our work with Pacific Flying Labs culminated with a full day workshop on the use of drones for social good in the South Pacific. This was the first convening of it’s kind in the region, and brought together key stakeholders to address common challenges, identify opportunities and to create new strategic partnerships. These stakeholders included the Fiji Red Cross, Australian Red Cross, Australian Center for Field Robotics, Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and several other groups. Two youths who participated in both sets of trainings/projects opened the workshop by presenting their findings (photo below; the young woman in this photo is not one of the vulnerable youths who participated in the trainings/projects). This opening session was followed by a series of talks from local and international participants working on drones projects in the region.
During the afternoon sessions, participants discussed common challenges and new partnership opportunities. Over 30 participants from 8 different organizations participated in the workshop. Four new strategic partnership opportunities were identified between Pacific Labs and the following organizations as a result: Red Cross, SPC, World Mosquito Program and Australian Center for Field Robotics.
Today, Fiji is being hit by a second cyclone in just as many weeks. Amrita and team are already in touch with the Fiji Red Cross and are on standby to support the disaster response and recovery work after Cyclone Keni barrels through. So instead of hiring drone companies from Australia or further afield, organizations like the Red Cross, UN and World Bank can hire young drone pilots from Fiji to support a wide range of humanitarian, development and environmental projects. Local pilots can respond more quickly than foreign pilots; plus they know the country better, speak the local language, understand local traditions and have lower overhead costs. This is just one several ways we plan to prepare youths in the region for the workforce of the future.
“I’ve been to countless remote sensing conferences over the past 30 years but WeRobotics Global absolutely ranks as the best event I’ve been to.” – Remote Sensing Expert
“The event was really mind-blowing. I’ve participated in many workshops over the past 20 years. WeR Global was by far the most insightful and practical. It is also amazing how closely together everyone is working — irrespective of who is working where (NGO, UN, private sector, donor). I’ve never seen such a group of people come together this away.” – Humanitarian Professional
“WeRobotics Global is completely different to any development meeting or workshop I’ve been to in recent years. The discussions flowed seamlessly between real world challenges, genuine bottom-up approaches and appropriate technology solutions. Conversations were always practical and strikingly transparent. This was a highly unusual event.” – International Donor
WeRobotics Global has become a premier forum for social good robotics. The feedback featured above was unsolicited. On June 1, 2017, we convened our first, annual global event, bringing together 34 organizations to New York City (full list below) to shape the global agenda and future use of robotics in the social good sector. WeRobotics Global was kindly hosted by Rockefeller, the first donor to support our efforts. They opened the event with welcome remarks and turned it over to Patrick Meier from WeRobotics who provided an overview of WeRobotics and set the big picture context for social robotics.
The first panel featured our Flying Labs Coordinators from Tanzania (Yussuf), Peru (Juan) and Nepal (Uttam). Each shared the hard work they’ve been doing over the past 6-10 months on localizing and applying robotics solutions. Yussuf spoke about the lab’s use of aerial robotics for disaster damage assessment following the earthquake in Bukoba and for coastal monitoring, environmental monitoring and forestry management. He emphasized the importance of community engagement and closed with new projects that Tanzania Flying Labs is working on such as mangrove monitoring for the Department of Forestry. Juan presented the work of the labs in the Amazon Rainforest, which is a joint effort with the Peruvian Ministry of Health. Together, they are field-testing the use of affordable and locally repairable flying robots for the delivery of antivenom and other medical payload between local clinics and remote villages. Juan noted that Peru Flying Labs is gearing up to carry out a record number of flight tests this summer using a larger and more diverse fleet of flying robots. Last but not least, Uttam showed how Nepal Flying Labs has been using flying robots for agriculture monitoring, damage assessment and mapping of property rights. He also gave an overview of the social entrepreneurship training and business plan competition recently organized by Nepal Flying Labs. This business incubation training has resulted in the launch of 4 new Nepali start-up companies focused on Robotics-as-a-Service.
The following videos provide highlights from each of our Flying Labs: Tanzania, Peru and Nepal.
The second panel featured talks on sector based solutions starting with the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC). The Federation (Aarathi) spoke about their joint project with WeRobotics; looking at cross-sectoral needs for various robotics solutions in the South Pacific. IFRC is exploring at the possibility of launching a South Pacific Flying Labs with a strong focus on women and girls. Pix4D (Lorenzo) addressed the role of aerial robotics in agriculture, giving concrete examples of successful applications while providing guidance to our Flying Labs Coordinators.The Wall Street Journal (Sally) spoke about the use of aerial robotics in news gathering and investigative journalism. She specifically emphasized the importance of using flying robots for storytelling. Duke Marine Labs (David) closed the panel with an overview of their projects in nature conservation and marine life protection, highlighting their use of machine learning for automated feature detection for real-time analysis.
Panel number three addressed the transformation of transportation. UNICEF (Judith) highlighted the field tests they have been carrying out in Malawi; using cargo robotics to transport HIV samples in order to accelerate HIV testing and thus treatment. UNICEF has also launched an air corridor in Malawi to enable further field-testing of flying robots. MSF (Oriol) shared their approach to cargo delivery using aerial robotics. They shared examples from Papua New Guinea(PNG) and emphasized the importance of localizing appropriate robotics solutions that can be maintained locally. MSF also called for the launch of PNG Flying Labs. IAEA was unable to attend WeR Global, so Patrick and Adam from WeRobotics gave the talk instead. WeRobotics is teaming up with IAEA to design and test a release mechanism for sterilized mosquitos in order to reduce the incidence of Zika and other mosquito-borne illnesses. More here. Finally, Llamasoft (Sid) closed the panel with a strong emphasis on the need to collect and share structured data to accurately carry out comparative cost-benefit-analyses of cargo delivery via flying robots versus conventional means. Sid used the analogy of self-driving cars to highlight how problematic the current lack of data vis-a-vis reliably evaluating the impact of cargo robotics.
The fourth and final panel went beyond aerial robotics. Digger (Thomas) showed how they convert heavy construction vehicles into semi-autonomous platforms to clear landmines and debris in conflict zones like Iraq and Syria. Science in the Wild (Ulyana) was alas unable to attend the event, so Patrick from WeRobotics gave the talk instead. This focused on the use of swimming robots to monitor glacial lakes in the Himalaya. The purpose of the effort is to identify cracks in the lake floors before they trigger what local villagers call the tsunamis of the Himalaya. OpenROV (David) gave a talk on the use of diving robots, sharing real-world examples and providing exciting updates on the new Trident diving robot. Planet Labs (Andrew) gave the closing talk, highlighting how space robotics (satellites) are being used across a wide range of social good projects. He emphasized the importance of integrating both aerial and satellite imagery to support social good projects.
The final session at WeR Global comprised breakout groups to identify next steps for WeRobotics and the social good sector more broadly. Many quality insights and recommendations were shared during the report back. One such recommendation was to hold WeR Global again, and sooner rather than later. So we look forward to organizing WeRobotics Global 2018. We will be providing updates via our blog and email list. We will also use our blog and email list to share select videos of the individual talks from Global 2017 along with their respective slide decks.
In the meantime, a big thanks to all participants and speakers for making Global 2017 such an unforgettable event. And sincerest thanks to the Rockefeller Foundation for hosting us at their headquarters in New York City.
Organizations that participated in WeRobotics Global 2017
UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), World Food Program (WFP), UN Development Program (UNDP),Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), UNICEF, World Bank, World Economic Forum (WEF), Cadasta, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, Duke Marine Labs, Fauna and Flora International, Science in the Wild, Drone Journalism Lab, Wall Street Journal, ESRI, Pix4D, Radiant, OpenAerialMap, Planet Labs, Llamasoft, Amazon Prime Air, senseFly, OpenROV, Digger, UPenn Robotics, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Rockefeller Foundation, Gates Foundation, Omidyar Network, Hewlett Foundation, USAID and Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).
Should developing countries seek to manufacture their own robotics solutions in order to establish payload delivery services? What business models make the most sense to sustain these services? Do decision-support tools already exist to determine which delivery routes are best served by aerial robots (drones) rather than traditional systems (such as motorbikes)? And what mechanisms should be in place to ensure that the impact of robotics solutions on local employment is one of net job creation rather than job loss?
There are some of the questions I’ve been thinking about and discussing with various colleagues over the past year vis-a-vis humanitarian applications. So let me take the first 2 questions and explore these further here. I’ll plan on writing a follow up post in the near future to address the other two questions.
First, should developing countries take advantage of commercial solutions that already exist to build their robotics delivery infrastructure? Or should they seek instead to manufacture these robotics platforms locally instead? The way I see it, this does not have to be an either/or situation. Developing countries can both benefit from the robust robotics technologies that already exist and take steps to manufacture their own solutions over time.
This is not a hypothetical debate. I’ve spent the past few months going back and forth with a government official in a developing country about this very question. The official is not interested in leveraging existing commercial solutions from the West. As he rightly notes, there are many bright engineers in-country who are able and willing to build these robotics solutions locally.
Here’s the rub, however, this official has no idea just how much work, time and money is needed to develop robust, reliable and safe robotics solutions. In fact, many companies in both Europe and the US have themselves completely under-estimated just how technically challenging (and very expensive) it is to develop reliable aerial robotics solutions to delivery payloads. This endeavor easily takes years and millions of dollars to have a shot at success. It is far from trivial.
The government official in question wants his country’s engineers to build these solutions locally in order to transport essential medicines and vaccines between health clinics and remote villages. Providing this service is relatively urgent because existing delivery mechanisms are slow, unreliable and at times danger-ous. So this official will have to raise a substantial amount of funds to pay local engineers to build home-grown robotics solutions and iterate accordingly. This could take years (with absolutely no guarantee of success mind you).
On the other hand, this same official could decide to welcome the use of existing commercial solutions as part of field-tests in-country. The funding for this would not have to come from the government and the platforms could be field-tested as early as this summer. Not only would this provide local engineers with the ability to learn from the tests and gain important engineering insights, they could also be hired to actually operate the cargo delivery services over the long-term, thus gaining the skills to maintain and fix the platforms. Learning by doing would give these engineers practical training that they could use to build their own home-grown solutions.
One could be even more provocative: Why invest so much time and effort in local manufacturing when in-country engineers and entrepreneurs could simply use commercial solutions that already exist to make money sooner rather than later by providing robotics as a service? We’ve seen, historically, the transition from manufacturing to service-based economies. There’s plenty of profit to be made from the latter with a lot less start-up time and capital required. And again, one strategy does not preclude the other, so why forgo both early training and business opportunities when these same opportunities could help develop and fund the local robotics industry?
Admittedly, I’m somewhat surprised by the official’s zero tolerance for the use of foreign commercial technology to improve his country’s public health services; that same official is using computers, phones, cars, televisions, etc., that are certainly not made in-country. He does not have a background in robotics, so perhaps he assumes that building robust robotics solutions is relatively easy. Simply perusing the past 2 years of crowdfunded aerial robotics projects will clearly demonstrate that most have resulted in complete failure despite raising millions of dollars. That robotics graveyard keeps growing.
But I fully respect the government official’s position even if I disagree with it. In my most recent exchange with said official, I politely re-iterated that one strategy (local manufacturing) does not preclude the other (local business opportunities around robotics as service using foreign commercial solutions). Surely, the country in question can both leverage foreign technology while also building a local manufacturing base to produce their own robotics solutions.
Second, on business models, which models can provide sustainability by having aerial delivery services be profitable earlier rather than later? I was recently speaking to a good colleague of mine who works for a very well-respected humanitarian group about their plans to pilot the use of aerial robotics for the delivery of essential medicines. When I asked him about his organization’s business model for sustaining these delivery services, he simply said there was no model, that his humanitarian organization would simply foot the bill.
Surely we can do better. Just think how absurd it would be for a humanitarian organization to pay for their own 50 kilometer paved road to transport essential medicines by truck and decide not to recoup those major costs. You’ve paid for a perfectly good road that only gets used a few times a day by your organization. But 80% of the time there is no one else on that road. That would be absurd. Humanitarians who seek to embark on robotics delivery projects should really take the time to understand local demand for transportation services and use-cases to explore strategies to recoup part of their investments in building the aerial robotics infrastructure.
Surely remote communities who are disconnected from health services are also disconnected from access to other commodities. Of course, these local villages may not benefit from high levels of income; but I’m not suggesting that we look for high margins of return. Point is, if you’ve already purchased an aerial robot (drone) and it spends 80% of its time on the ground, then talk about a missed opportunity. Take commercial aviation as an analogy. Airlines do not make money when their planes are parked at the gate. They make money when said planes fly from point A to point B. The more they fly, the more they transport, the more they profit. So pray tell what is the point of investing in aerial robots only to have them spend most of their lives on the ground? Why not “charter” these robots for other purposes when they’re not busy flying medicines?
The fixed costs are the biggest hurdle with respect to aerial robotics, not the variable costs. Autonomous flights themselves cost virtually nothing; only 1-2 person’s time to operate the robot and swap batteries & payloads. Just like their big sisters (manually piloted aircraft), aerial robots should be spending the bulk of their time in the sky. So humanitarian organizations really ought to be thinking earlier rather than later about how to recoup part of their fixed costs by offering to transport other high-demand goods. For example, by allowing local businesses to use existing robotics aircraft and routes to transport top-up cards or SIM cards for mobile phones. What is the weight of 500 top-up or SIM cards? Around 0.5kg, which is easily transportable via aerial robot. Better yet, identify perishable commodities with a short shelf-life and allow business to fly those via aerial robot.
The business model that I’m most interested in at the moment is a “Per Flight Savings” model. One reason to introduce robotics solutions is to save on costs—variable costs in particular. Lest say that the variable cost of operating robotics solutions is 20% lower than the costs of traditional delivery mechanisms (per flight versus per drive, for example). You offer the client a 10% cost saving and pocket the other 10% as revenue. Over time, with sufficient flights (transactions) and growing demand, you break even and start to create a profit. I realize this is a hugely simplistic description; but this need not be unnecessarily complicated either. The key will obviously be the level of demand for these transactions.
The way I see it, regardless of the business model, there will be a huge first-mover advantage in developing countries given the massive barriers to entry. Said barriers are primarily due to regulatory issues and air traffic management challenges. For example, once a robotics company manages to get regulatory approval and specific flight permissions for designated delivery routes to supply essential medicines, a second company that seeks to enter the market may face even greater barriers. Why? Because managing aerial robotics platforms from one company and segregating that airspace from manned aircraft can already be a challenge (not to mention a source of concern for Civil Aviation Authorities).
So adding new (and different types of) robots from a second company requires new communication protocols between the different robotics platforms operated by the 2 different companies. In sum, the challenges become more complex more quickly as new competitors seek entry. And for an Aviation Authority that may already be weary of flying robots, the proposal of adding a second fleet from a different company in order to increase competition around aerial deliveries may take said Authority some time to digest. Of course, if these companies can each operate in completely different parts of a given country, then technically this is an easier challenge to manage (and less anxiety provoking for authorities).
But said barriers do not only include technical (though surmountable) barriers. They also include identifying those (few?) use-cases that clearly make the most business sense to recoup one’s investments earlier rather than later given the very high start-up fixed costs associated with developing robotics platforms. Identifying these business cases is typically not something that’s easily done remotely. A considerable amount of time and effort must be spent on-site to identify and meet possible stakeholders in order to brainstorm and discover key use-cases. And my sense is that aerial robots often need to be designed to meet a specific use-case. So even when new use-cases are identified, there may still be the need for Research and Development (R&D) to modify a given robotics platform so it can most efficiently cater to new use-cases.
There are other business models worth thinking through for related services, such as those around the provision of battery-charging services, for example. The group Mobisol has installed solar home systems on the roofs of over 40,000 households in Rwanda and Tanzania to tackle the challenge of energy poverty. Mobisol claims to already cover much of Tanzania with solar panels that are no more than 5 kilometers apart. This could enabling aerial robots (UAVs) to hop from recharging station to recharging station, an opportunity that Mobisol is already actively exploring. Practical challenges aside, this network of charging stations could lead to an interesting business model around the provision of aerial robotics services.
As the astute reader will have gathered, much of the above is simply a written transcript me thinking out load. So I’d very much welcome some intellectual company here along with constructive feedback. What am I missing? Is my logic sound? What else should I be taking into account?
The latest news coming from Taiwan is just tragic and breaks my heart. More than 100 may still be trapped under the rubble. I’ve been blogging about the role that emerging technologies can play in humanitarian response since 2008 but it definitely doesn’t get any easier emotionally to witness these tragic events. I try to draw a psychological line when I can so as not to lose hope and fall apart, but I’m not always successful. Sometimes it is just easier psychologically to focus on the technology and nothing else. My thoughts go out to all the families affected.
My colleague Preston Ward from DronePan kindly connected me to a friend of his, Elton, in Taiwan. Elton is with Super720, a company that creates impressive Virtual Reality (VR) panoramas. They deployed within 4 hours of the earthquake and used aerial robots (UAVs) at 5 different locations to capture both 360° aerial panoramas and 4K video to document the earthquake damage.
Click on the image below to view the pano in full 360° (takes a while to load).
360° visual analysis may prove useful and complementary for inspecting disaster damage. If there were a way to geo-reference and orthorectify these panos, they could potentially play a larger role in the disaster assessment process which uses geospatial data and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
The team in Taiwan also shared this aerial video footage of the damage:
As one of my upcoming blog posts will note, we should be able to run computer vision algorithms on aerial videos to automatically detect disaster damage. We should also be able to use Virtual Reality to carry out damage assessments. You can already use VR to inspect at the earthquake damage in Taiwan here.
I had the honor of spearheading this disaster recovery UAV mission in Nepal a few weeks ago as part of Kathmandu Flying Labs. I’ve been working on this new initiative (in my own time) with Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL), Kathmandu University (KU), DJI and Pix4D. This Flying Lab is the first of several local UAV innovation labs that I am setting up (in my personal capacity and during my holiday time) with friends and colleagues in disaster-prone countries around the world. The short film documentary above was launched just minutes ago by DJI and describes how we teamed up with local partners in Kathmandu to make use of aerial robotics (UAVs) to map Nepal’s recovery efforts.
Here are some of the 3D results, courtesy of Pix4D (click to enlarge):
Since most of our local partners in Nepal don’t have easy access to computers or VR headsets, I found another way to unlock and liberate this digital data by printing our high-resolution maps on large, rollable banners.
We brought these banner maps back to the local community and invited them to hack the map. How? Directly, by physically adding their local knowledge to the map; knowledge about the location of debris, temporary shelters, drinking water and lots more. We brought tape and color-coded paper with us to code this knowledge so that the community could annotate the map themselves.
In other words, we crowdsourced a crisis map of Panga, which was highly participatory. The result was a rich, contextual social layer on top of the base map, which further inform community discussions on strategies and priorities guiding their recovery efforts. For the first time ever, the community of Panga was working off the one and same dataset to inform their rebuilding. In short, our humanitarian mission combined aerial robotics, computer vision, water-proof banners, local knowledge, tape, paper and crowdsourcing to engage local communities on the reconstruction process.
I’m now spending my evenings & weekends working with friends and colleagues to plan a follow-up mission in early 2016. We’ll be returning to Kathmandu Flying Labs with new technology partners to train our local partners on how to use fixed-wing UAVs for large scale mapping efforts. In the meantime, we’re also exploring the possibility of co-creating Jakarta Flying Labs, Monrovia Flying Labs and Santiago Flying Labs in 2016.
I’m quitting my day job next week to devote myself full time to these efforts. Fact is, I’ve been using all of my free time (meaning evenings, weekends and many, many weeks of holiday time) to pursue my passion in aid robotics and to carry out volunteer-based UAV missions like the one in Nepal. I’ve also used holiday time (and my own savings) to travel across the globe to present this volunteer-work at high-profile events, such as the 2015 Web Summit here in Dublin where the DJI film documentary was just publicly launched.
My Nepali friends & I need your help to make sure that Kathmandu Flying Labs take-off and become a thriving and sustainable center of social entrepreneur-ship. To this end, we’re actively looking for both partners and sponsors to make all this happen, so please do get in touch if you share our vision. And if you’d like to learn more about how UAVs & other emerging technologies are changing the face of humanitarian action, then check out my new book Digital Humanitarians.
In the meantime, big, big thanks to our Nepali partners and technology partners for making our good work in Kathmandu possible!
Buddhist Temples adorn Nepal’s blessed land. Their stupas, like Everest, stretch to the heavens, yearning to democratize the sky. We felt the same yearning after landing in Kathmandu with our UAVs. While some prefer the word “drone” over “UAVs”, the reason our Nepali partners use the latter dates back some 3,000 years to the spiritual epic Mahabharata (Great Story of Bharatas). The ancient story features Drona, a master of advanced military arts who slayed hundreds of thousands with his bow & arrows. This strong military connotation explains why our Nepali partners use “UAV” instead, which is the term we also used for our Humanitarian UAV Mission in the land of Buddha. Our purpose: to democratize the sky.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are aerial robots. They are the first wave of robotics to impact the humanitarian space. The mission of the Humanitarian UAV Network (UAViators) is to enable the safe, responsible and effective use of UAVs in a wide range of humanitarian and development settings. We thus spearheaded a unique and weeklong UAV Mission in Nepal in close collaboration with Kathmandu University (KU), Kathmandu Living Labs (KLL), DJI and Pix4D. This mission represents the first major milestone for Kathmandu Flying Labs (please see end of this post for background on KFL).
Our joint UAV mission combined both hands-on training and operational deployments. The full program is available here. The first day comprised a series of presentations on Humanitarian UAV Applications, Missions, Best Practices, Guidelines, Technologies, Software and Regulations. These talks were given by myself, KU, DJI, KLL and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) of Nepal. The second day focused on direct hands-on training. DJI took the lead by training 30+ participants on how to use the Phantom 3 UAVs safely, responsibly. Pix4D, also on site, followed up by introducing their imagery-analysis software.
The second-half of the day was dedicated to operations. We had already received written permission from the CAA to carry out all UAV flights thanks to KU’s outstanding leadership. KU also selected the deployment sites and enabled us to team up with the very pro-active Community Disaster Management Committee (CDMC-9) of Kirtipur to survey the town of Panga, which had been severely affected by the earthquake just months earlier. The CDMC was particularly keen to gain access to very high-resolution aerial imagery of the area to build back faster and better, so we spent half-a-day flying half-a-dozen Phantom 3’s over parts of Panga as requested by our local partners.
The best part of this operation came at the end of the day when we had finished the mission and were packing up: Our Nepali partners politely noted that we had not in fact finished the job; we still had a lot more area to cover. They wanted us back in Panga the following day to complete our mapping mission. We thus changed our plans and returned the next day during which—thanks to DJI & Pix4D—we flew several dozen additional UAV flights from four different locations across Panga (without taking a single break; no lunch was had). Our local partners were of course absolutely invaluable throughout since they were the ones informing the flight plans. They also made it possible for us to launch and land all our flights from the highest rooftops across town. (Click images to enlarge).
Meanwhile, back at KU, our Pix4D partners provided hands-on training on how to use their software to analyze the aerial imagery we had collected the day before. KLL also provided training on how to use the Humanitarian Open Street Map Tasking Manager to trace this aerial imagery. Incidentally, we flew well over 60 UAV flights all in all over the course of our UAV mission, which includes all our training flights on campus as well as our aerial survey of a teaching hospital. Not a single incident or accident occurred; everyone followed safety guidelines and the technology worked flawlessly.
With more than 800 aerial photographs in hand, the Pix4D team worked through the night to produce a very high-resolution orthorectified mosaic of Panga. Here are some of the results.
Compare these results with the resolution and colors of the satellite imagery for the same area (maximum zoom).
We can now use MicroMappers to crowdsource the analysis & digital annotation of oblique aerial pictures and videos collected throughout the mission. This is an important step in the development of automated feature-detection algorithms using techniques from computer vision and machine learning. The reason we want automated solutions is because aerial imagery already presents a Big Data challenge for humanitarian and development organizations. Indeed, a single 20- minute UAV flight can generate some 800 images. A trained analyst needs at least one minute to analyze a single image, which means that more than 13 hours of human time is needed to analyze imagery captured from just one 20-minute UAV flight. More on this Big Data challenge here.
Incidentally, since Pix4D also used their software to produce a number of stunning 3D models, I’m keen to explore ways to crowdsource 3D models via MicroMappers and to explore possible Virtual Reality solutions to the Big Data challenge. In any event, we generated all the aerial data requested by our local partners by the end of the day.
While this technically meant that we had successfully completed our mission, it didn’t feel finished to me. I really wanted to “liberate” the data completely and place it directly into the hands of the CDCM and local community in Panga. What’s the point of “open data” if most of Panga’s residents are not able to view or interact with the resulting maps? So I canceled my return flight and stayed an extra day to print out our aerial maps on very large roll-able and waterproof banners (which are more durable than paper-based maps).
We thus used these banner-maps and participatory mapping methods to engage the local community directly. We invited community members to annotate the very-high resolution aerial maps themselves by using tape and color-coded paper we had brought along. In other words, we used the aerial imagery as a base map to catalyze a community-wide discussion; to crowdsource and to visualize the community’s local knowledge. Participatory mapping and GIS (PPGIS) can play an impactful role in humanitarian and development projects, hence the initiative with our local partners (more here on community mapping).
In short, our humanitarian mission combined aerial robotics, computer vision, waterproof banners, tape, paper and crowdsourcing to inform the rebuilding process at the community level.
The engagement from the community was absolutely phenomenal and definitely for me the highlight of the mission. Our CDMC partners were equally thrilled and excited with the community engagement that the maps elicited. There were smiles all around. When we left Panga some four hours later, dozens of community members were still discussing the map, which our partners had hung up near a popular local teashop.
There’s so much more to share from this UAV mission; so many angles, side-stories and insights. The above is really just a brief and incomplete teaser. So stay tuned, there’s a lot more coming up from DJI and Pix4D. Also, the outstanding film crew that DJI invited along is already reviewing the vast volume of footage captured during the week. We’re excited to see the professionally edited video in coming weeks, not to mention the professional photographs that both DJI and Pix4D took throughout the mission. We’re especially keen to see what our trainees at KU and KLL do next with the technology and software that are now in their hands. Indeed, the entire point of our mission was to help build local capacity for UAV missions in Nepal by transferring knowledge, skills and technology. It is now their turn to democratize the skies of Nepal.
Acknowledgements: Some serious acknowledgements are in order. First, huge thanks to Lecturer Uma Shankar Panday from KU for co-sponsoring this mission, for hosting us and for making our joint efforts a resounding success. The warm welcome and kind hospitality we received from him, KU’s faculty and executive leadership was truly very touching. Second, special thanks to the CAA of Nepal for participating in our training and for giving us permission to fly. Third, big, big thanks to the entire DJI and Pix4D Teams for joining this UAViators mission and for all their very, very hard work throughout the week. Many thanks also to DJI for kindly donating 10 Smartisan phones and 10 Phantom 3’s to KU and KLL; and kind thanks to Pix4D for generously donating licenses of their software to both KU and KLL. Fourth, many thanks to KLL for contributing to the training and for sharing our vision behind Kathmandu Flying Labs. Fifth, I’d like to express my sincere gratitude to Smartisan for co-sponsoring this mission. Sixth, deepest thanks to CDMC and Dhulikhel Hospital for partnering with us on the ops side of the mission. Their commitment and life-saving work are truly inspiring. Seventh, special thanks to the film and photography crew for being so engaged throughout the mission; they were absolutely part of the team. In closing, I want to specifically thank my colleagues Andrew Schroeder from UAViators and Paul & William from DJI for all the heavy lifting they did to make this entire mission possible. On a final and personal note, I’ve made new friends for life as a result of this UAV mission, and for that I am infinitely grateful.
Kathmandu Flying Labs: My colleague Dr. Nama Budhathoki and I began discussing the potential role that small UAVs could play in his country in early 2014, well over a year-and-half before Nepal’s tragic earthquakes. Nama is the Director of Kathmandu Living Labs, a crack team of Digital Humanitarians whose hard work has been featured in The New York Times and the BBC. Nama and team create open-data maps for disaster risk reduction and response. They use Humanitarian OpenStreetMap’s Tasking Server to trace buildings and roads visible from orbiting satellites in order to produce these invaluable maps. Their primary source of satellite imagery for this is Bing. Alas, said imagery is both low-resolution and out-of-date. And they’re not sure they’ll have free access to said imagery indefinitely either.
So Nama and I decided to launch a UAV Innovation Lab in Nepal, which I’ve been referring to as Kathmandu Flying Labs. A year-and-a-half later, the tragic earthquake struck. So I reached out to DJI in my capacity as founder of the Humanitarian UAV Network (UAViators). The mission of UAViators is to enable the safe, responsible and effective use of UAVs in a wide range of humanitarian and development settings. DJI, who are on the Advisory Board of UAViators, had deployed a UAV team in response to the 6.1 earthquake in China the year before. Alas, they weren’t able to deploy to Nepal. But they very kindly donated two Phantom 2’s to KLL.
A few months later, my colleague Andrew Schroeder from UAViators and Direct Relief reconnected with DJI to explore the possibility of a post-disaster UAV Mission focused on recovery and rebuilding. Both DJI and Pix4D were game to make this mission happen, so I reached out to KLL and KU to discuss logistics. Professor Uma at KU worked tirelessly to set everything up. The rest, as they say, is history. There is of course a lot more to be done, which is why Nama, Uma and I are already planning the next important milestones for Kathmandu Flying Labs. Do please get in touch if you’d like to be involved and contribute to this truly unique initiative. We’re also exploring payload delivery options via UAVs and gearing up for new humanitarian UAV missions in other parts of the planet.
Humanitarian and development organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank typically carry out disaster damage and needs assessments following major disasters. The ultimate goal of these assessments is to measure the impact of disasters on the society, economy and environment of the affected country or region. This includes assessing the damage caused to building infrastructure, for example. These assessment surveys are generally carried out in person—that is, on foot and/or by driving around an affected area. This is a very time-consuming process with very variable results in terms of data quality. Can 3D (Point Clouds) derived from very high resolution aerial imagery captured by UAVs accelerate and improve the post-disaster damage assessment process? Yes, but a number of challenges related to methods, data & software need to be overcome first. Solving these challenges will require pro-active cross-disciplinary collaboration.
The following three-tiered scale is often used to classify infrastructure damage: “1) Completely destroyed buildings or those beyond repair; 2) Partially destroyed buildings with a possibility of repair; and 3) Unaffected buildings or those with only minor damage . By locating on a map all dwellings and buildings affected in accordance with the categories noted above, it is easy to visualize the areas hardest hit and thus requiring priority attention from authorities in producing more detailed studies and defining demolition and debris removal requirements” (UN Handbook). As one World Bank colleague confirmed in a recent email, “From the engineering standpoint, there are many definitions of the damage scales, but from years of working with structural engineers, I think the consensus is now to use a three-tier scale – destroyed, heavily damaged, and others (non-visible damage).”
That said, field-based surveys of disaster damage typically overlook damage caused to roofs since on-the-ground surveyors are bound by the laws of gravity. Hence the importance of satellite imagery. At the same time, however, “The primary problem is the vertical perspective of [satellite imagery, which] largely limits the building information to the roofs. This roof information is well suited for the identification of extreme damage states, that is completely destroyed structures or, to a lesser extent, undamaged buildings. However, damage is a complex 3-dimensional phenomenon,” which means that “important damage indicators expressed on building façades, such as cracks or inclined walls, are largely missed, preventing an effective assessment of intermediate damage states” (Fernandez Galaretta et al. 2014).
This explains why “Oblique imagery [captured from UAVs] has been identified as more useful, though the multi-angle imagery also adds a new dimension of complexity” as we experienced first-hand during the World Bank’s UAV response to Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu (Ibid, 2014). Obtaining photogrammetric data for oblique images is particularly challenging. That is, identifying GPS coordinates for a given house pictured in an oblique photograph is virtually impossible to do automatically with the vast majority of UAV cameras. (Only specialist cameras using gimbal mounted systems can reportedly infer photogrammetric data in oblique aerial imagery, but even then it is unclear how accurate this inferred GPS data is). In any event, oblique data also “lead to challenges resulting from the multi-perspective nature of the data, such as how to create single damage scores when multiple façades are imaged” (Ibid, 2014).
To this end, my colleague Jorge Fernandez Galarreta and I are exploring the use of 3D (point clouds) to assess disaster damage. Multiple software solutions like Pix4D and PhotoScan can already be used to construct detailed point clouds from high-resolution 2D aerial imagery (nadir and oblique). “These exceed standard LiDAR point clouds in terms of detail, especially at façades, and provide a rich geometric environment that favors the identification of more subtle damage features, such as inclined walls, that otherwise would not be visible, and that in combination with detailed façade and roof imagery have not been studied yet” (Ibid, 2014).
Unlike oblique images, point clouds give surveyors a full 3D view of an urban area, allowing them to “fly through” and inspect each building up close and from all angles. One need no longer be physically onsite, nor limited to simply one façade or a strictly field-based view to determine whether a given building is partially damaged. But what does partially damaged even mean when this kind of high resolution 3D data becomes available? Take this recent note from a Bank colleague with 15+ years of experience in disaster damage assessments: “In the [Bank’s] official Post-Disaster Needs Assessment, the classification used is to say that if a building is 40% damaged, it needs to be repaired. In my view this is too vague a description and not much help. When we say 40%, is it the volume of the building we are talking about or the structural components?”
In their recent study, Fernandez Galaretta et al. used point clouds to generate per-building damage scores based on a 5-tiered classification scale (D1-D5). They chose to compute these damage scores based on the following features: “cracks, holes, intersection of cracks with load-carrying elements and dislocated tiles.” They also selected non-damage related features: “façade, window, column and intact roof.” Their results suggest that the visual assessment of point clouds is very useful to identify the following disaster damage features: total collapse, collapsed roof, rubble piles, inclined façades and more subtle damage signatures that are difficult to recognize in more traditional BDA [Building Damage Assessment] approaches. The authors were thus able to compute a per building damage score, taking into account both “the overall structure of the building,” and the “aggregated information collected from each of the façades and roofs of the building to provide an individual per-building damage score.”
Fernandez Galaretta et al. also explore the possibility of automating this damage assessment process based on point clouds. Their conclusion: “More research is needed to extract automatically damage features from point clouds, combine those with spectral and pattern indicators of damage, and to couple this with engineering understanding of the significance of connected or occluded damage indictors for the overall structural integrity of a building.” That said, the authors note that this approach would “still suffer from the subjectivity that characterizes expert-based image analysis.”
Hence my interest in using crowdsourcing to analyze point clouds for disaster damage. Naturally, crowdsourcing alone will not eliminate subjectivity. In fact, having more people analyze point clouds may yield all kinds of disparate results. This is explains why a detailed and customized imagery interpretation guide is necessary; like this one, which was just released by my colleagues at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative (HHI). This also explains why crowdsourcing platforms require quality-control mechanisms. One easy technique is triangulation: have ten different volunteers look at each point cloud and tag features in said cloud that show cracks, holes, intersection of cracks with load-carrying elements and dislocated tiles. Surely more eyes are better than two for tasks that require a good eye for detail.
Next, identify which features have the most tags—this is the triangulation process. For example, if one area of a point cloud is tagged as a “crack” by 8 or more volunteers, chances are there really is a crack there. One can then count the total number of distinct areas tagged as cracks by 8 or more volunteers across the point cloud to calculate the total number of cracks per façade. Do the same with the other metrics (holes, dislocated titles, etc.), and you can compute a per building damage score based on overall consensus derived from hundreds of crowdsourced tags. Note that “tags’ can also be lines or polygons; meaning that individual cracks could be traced by volunteers, thus providing information on the approximate lengths/size of a crack. This variable could also be factored in the overall per-building damage score.
In sum, crowdsourcing could potentially overcome some of the data quality issues that have already marked field-based damage assessment surveys. In addition, crowdsourcing could potentially speed up the data analysis since professional imagery and GIS analysts tend to already be hugely busy in the aftermath of major disasters. Adding more data to their plate won’t help anyone. Crowdsourcing the analysis of 3D point clouds may thus be our best bet.
So why hasn’t this all been done yet? For several reasons. For one, creating very high-resolution point clouds requires more pictures and thus more UAV flights, which can be time consuming. Second, processing aerial imagery to construct point clouds can also take some time. Third, handling, sharing and hosting point clouds can be challenging given how large those files quickly get. Fourth, no software platform currently exists to crowdsource the annotation of point clouds as described above (particularly when it comes to the automated quality control mechanisms that are necessary to ensure data quality). Fifth, we need more robust imagery interpretation guides. Sixth, groups like the UN and the World Bank are still largely thinking in 2D rather than 3D. And those few who are considering 3D tend to approach this from a data visualization angle rather than using human and machine computing to analyze 3D data. Seventh, this area, point cloud analysis for 3D feature detection, is still a very new area of research. Many of the methodology questions that need answers have yet to be answered, which is why my team and I at QCRI are starting to explore this area from the perspective of computer vision and machine learning.
The holy grail? Combining crowdsourcing with machine learning for real-time feature detection of disaster damage in 3D point clouds rendered in real-time via airborne UAVs surveying a disaster site. So what is it going to take to get there? Well, first of all, UAVs are becoming more sophisticated; they’re flying faster and for longer and will increasingly be working in swarms. (In addition, many of the new micro-UAVs come with a “follow me” function, which could enable the easy and rapid collection of aerial imagery during field assessments). So the first challenge described above is temporary as are the second and third challenges since computer processing power is increasing, not decreasing, over time.
This leaves us with the software challenge and imagery guides. I’m already collaborate with HHI on the latter. As for the former, I’ve spoken with a number of colleagues to explore possible software solutions to crowdsource the tagging of point clouds. One idea is simply to extend MicroMappers. Another is to add simple annotation features to PLAS.io and PointCloudViz since these platforms are already designed to visualize and interact with point clouds. A third option is to use a 3D model platform like SketchFab, which already enables annotations. (Many thanks to colleague Matthew Schroyer for pointing me to SketchFab last week). I’ve since had a long call with SketchFab and am excited by the prospects of using this platform for simple point cloud annotation.
In fact, Matthew already used SketcFab to annotate a 3D model of Durbar Square neighborhood in downtown Kathmandu post-earthquake. He found an aerial video of the area, took multiple screenshots of this video, created a point cloud from these and then generated a 3D model which he annotated within SketchFab. This model, pictured below, would have been much higher resolution if he had the original footage or 2D images. Click pictures to enlarge.
Here’s a short video with all the annotations in the 3D model:
And here’s the link to the “live” 3D model. And to drive home the point that this 3D model could be far higher resolution if the underlying imagery had been directly accessible to Matthew, check out this other SketchFab model below, which you can also access in full here.
The SketchFab team has kindly given me a SketchFab account that allows up to 50 annotations per 3D model. So I’ll be uploading a number of point clouds from Vanuatu (post Cyclone Pam) and Nepal (post earthquakes) to explore the usability of SketchFab for crowdsourced disaster damage assessments. In the meantime, one could simply tag-and-number all major features in a point cloud, create a Google Form, and ask digital volunteers to rate the level of damage near each numbered tag. Not a perfect solution, but one that works. Ultimately, we’d need users to annotate point clouds by tracing 3D polygons if we wanted a more easy way to use the resulting data for automated machine learning purposes.
In any event, if readers do have any suggestions on other software platforms, methodologies, studies worth reading, etc., feel free to get in touch via the comments section below or by email, thank you. In the meantime, many thanks to colleagues Jorge, Matthew, Ferda & Ji (QCRI), Salvador (PointCloudViz), Howard (PLAS.io) and Corentin (SketchFab) for the time they’ve kindly spent brainstorming the above issues with me.
Point Clouds, or 3D models derived from high resolution aerial imagery, are in fact nothing new. Several software platforms already exist to reconstruct a series of 2D aerial images into fully fledged 3D-fly-through models. Check out these very neat examples from my colleagues at Pix4D and SenseFly:
What does a castle, Jesus and a mountain have to do with humanitarian action? As noted in my previous blog post, there’s only so much disaster damage one can glean from nadir (that is, vertical) imagery and oblique imagery. Lets suppose that the nadir image below was taken by an orbiting satellite or flying UAV right after an earthquake, for example. How can you possibly assess disaster damage from this one picture alone? Even if you had nadir imagery for these houses before the earthquake, your ability to assess structural damage would be limited.
This explains why we also captured oblique imagery for the World Bank’s UAV response to Cyclone Pam in Vanuatu (more here on that humanitarian mission). But even with oblique photographs, you’re stuck with one fixed perspective. Who knows what these houses below look like from the other side; your UAV may have simply captured this side only. And even if you had pictures for all possible angles, you’d literally have 100’s of pictures to leaf through and make sense of.
What’s that famous quote by Henry Ford again? “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” We don’t need faster UAVs, we simply need to turn what we already have into Point Clouds, which I’m indeed hoping to do with the aerial imagery from Vanuatu, by the way. The Point Cloud below was made only from single 2D aerial images.
It isn’t perfect, but we don’t need perfection in disaster response, we need good enough. So when we as humanitarian UAV teams go into the next post-disaster deployment and ask what humanitarians they need, they may say “faster horses” because they’re not (yet) familiar with what’s really possible with the imagery processing solutions available today. That obviously doesn’t mean that we should ignore their information needs. It simply means we should seek to expand their imaginations vis-a-vis the art of the possible with UAVs and aerial imagery. Here is a 3D model of a village in Vanuatu constructed using 2D aerial imagery:
Now, the title of my blog post does lead with the word crowdsourcing. Why? For several reasons. First, it takes some decent computing power (and time) to create these Point Clouds. But if the underlying 2D imagery is made available to hundreds of Digital Humanitarians, we could use this distributed computing power to rapidly crowdsource the creation of 3D models. Second, each model can then be pushed to MicroMappers for crowdsourced analysis. Why? Because having a dozen eyes scrutinizing one Point Cloud is better than 2. Note that for quality control purposes, each Point Cloud would be shown to 5 different Digital Humanitarian volunteers; we already do this with MicroMappers for tweets, pictures, videos, satellite images and of course aerial images as well. Each digital volunteer would then trace areas in the Point Cloud where they spot damage. If the traces from the different volunteers match, then bingo, there’s likely damage at those x, y and z coordinate. Here’s the idea:
We could easily use iPads to turn the process into a Virtual Reality experience for digital volunteers. In other words, you’d be able to move around and above the actual Point Cloud by simply changing the position of your iPad accordingly. This technology already exists and has for several years now. Tracing features in the 3D models that appear to be damaged would be as simple as using your finger to outline the damage on your iPad.
What about the inevitable challenge of Big Data? What if thousands of Point Clouds are generated during a disaster? Sure, we could try to scale our crowd-sourcing efforts by recruiting more Digital Humanitarian volunteers, but wouldn’t that just be asking for a “faster horse”? Just like we’ve already done with MicroMappers for tweets and text messages, we would seek to combine crowdsourcing and Artificial Intelligence to automatically detect features of interest in 3D models. This sounds to me like an excellent research project for a research institute engaged in advanced computing R&D.
I would love to see the results of this applied research integrated directly within MicroMappers. This would allow us to integrate the results of social media analysis via MicroMappers (e.g, tweets, Instagram pictures, YouTube videos) directly with the results of satellite imagery analysis as well as 2D and 3D aerial imagery analysis generated via MicroMappers.
Digital Humanitarians sprung to action just hours after the Category 5 Cyclone collided with Vanuatu’s many islands. This first deployment focused on rapidly assessing the damage by analyzing multimedia content posted on social media and in the mainstream news. This request came directly from the United Nations (OCHA), which activated the Digital Humanitarian Network (DHN) to carry out the rapid damage assessment. So the Standby Task Force (SBTF), a founding member of the DHN, used QCRI′s MicroMappers platform to produce a digital, interactive Crisis Map of some 1,000+ geo-tagged pictures of disaster damage (screenshot below).
Within days of Cyclone Pam making landfall, the World Bank (WB) activated the Humanitarian UAV Network (UAViators) to quickly deploy UAV pilots to the affected islands. UAViators has access to a global network of 700+ professional UAV pilots is some 70+ countries worldwide. The WB identified two UAV teams from the Humanitarian UAV Network and deployed them to capture very high-resolution aerial photographs of the damage to support the Government’s post-disaster damage assessment efforts. Pictures from these early UAV missions are available here. Aerial images & videos of the disaster damage were also posted to the UAViators Crowdsourced Crisis Map.
Last week, the World Bank activated the DHN (for the first time ever) to help analyze the many, many GigaBytes of aerial imagery from Vanuatu. So Digital Jedis from the DHN are now using Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT) and MicroMappers (MM) to crowdsource the search for partially damaged and fully destroyed houses in the aerial imagery. The OSM team is specifically looking at the “nadir imagery” captured by the UAVs while MM is exclusively reviewing the “oblique imagery“. More specifically, digital volunteers are using MM to trace destroyed houses red, partially damaged houses orange, and using blue to denote houses that appear to have little to no damage. Below is an early screenshot of the Aerial Crisis Map for the island of Efate. The live Crisis Map is available here.
Clicking on one of these markers will open up the high resolution aerial pictures taken at that location. Here, two houses are traced in blue (little to no damage) and two on the upper left are traced in orange (partial damage expected).
The cameras on the UAVs captured the aerial imagery in very high resolution, as you can see from the close up below. You’ll note two traces for the house. These two traces were done by two independent volunteers (for the purposes of quality control). In fact, each aerial image is shown to at least 3 different Digital Jedis.
Once this MicroMappers deployment is over, we’ll be using the resulting traces to create automated featured detection algorithms; just like we did here for the MicroMappers Namibia deployment. This approach, combining crowdsourcing with Artificial Intelligence (AI), is explored in more detail here vis-a-vis disaster response. The purpose of taking this hybrid human-machine computing solution is to accelerate (semi-automate) future damage assessment efforts.
Meanwhile, back in Vanuatu, the HOT team has already carried out some tentative, preliminary analysis of the damage based on the aerial imagery provided. They are also up-dating their OSM maps of the affected islands thanks this imagery. Below is an initial damage assessment carried out by HOT for demonstration purposes only. Please visit their deployment page on the Vanuatu response for more information.
So what’s next? Combining both the nadir and oblique imagery to interpret disaster damage is ultimately what is needed, so we’re actually hoping to make this happen (today) by displaying the nadir imagery directly within the Aerial Crisis Map produced by MicroMappers. (Many thanks to the MapBox team for their assistance on this). We hope this integration will help HOT and our World Bank partners better assess the disaster damage. This is the first time that we as a group are doing anything like this, so obviously lots of learning going on, which should improve future deployments. Ultimately, we’ll need to create 3D models (point clouds) of disaster affected areas (already easy to do with high-resolution aerial imagery) and then simply use MicroMappers to crowdsource the analysis of these 3D models.
And here’s a 3D model of a village in Vanuatu constructed using 2D aerial photos taken by UAV:
For now, though, Digital Jedis will continue working very closely with the World Bank to ensure that the latter have the results they need in the right format to deliver a comprehensive damage assessment to the Government of Vanuatu by the end of the week. In the meantime, if you’re interested in learning more about digital humanitarian action, then please check out my new book, which features UAViators, HOT, MM and lots more.
Aéroport de Port Vila – Bauerfield International Airport. As we land, thousands of uprooted trees could be seen in almost every direction.
Massive roots were not enough to save these trees from Cyclone Pam. The devastation reminds us how powerful nature is.
After getting clearance from the Australian Defense Force (ADF), we pack up our UAVs and head over to La Lagune for initial tests. Close collaboration with the military is an absolute must for humanitarian UAV missions. UAVs cannot operate in Restricted Operations Zones without appropriate clearance.
We’re in Vanuatu by invitation of the Government’s National Disaster Risk Management Office (NDMO). So we’re working very closely with our hosts to assess disaster damage and resulting needs. The government and donors need the damage quantified to assess how much funding is necessary for the recovery efforts; and where geographically that funding should be targeted.
Ceci n’est pas un drone; what we found at La Lagune, where the ADF has set up camp. At 2200 every night we send the ADF our flight plan clearance requests for the following day. For obvious safety reasons, we never deviate from these plans after they’ve been approved.
Unpacking and putting together the hexacopters can take a long time. The professional and certified UAV team from New Zealand (X-Craft) follows strict operational check lists to ensure safety and security. We also have a professional and certified team from Australia, Heliwest, which will be flying quadcopters. The UAV team from SPC is also joining our efforts. I’m proud to report that both the Australian & New Zealand teams were recruited directly from the pilot roster of the Humanitarian UAV Network.
The payload (camera) attached to our hexacopters; not exactly a GoPro. We also have other sensors for thermal imaging, etc.
Programming the test flights. Here’s a quick video intro on how to program UAVs for autonomous flights.
Night falls fast in Vanuatu…
… So our helpful drivers kindly light up our work area.
After flawless test flights; we’re back at “HQ” to program the flight paths for tomorrow morning’s humanitarian UAV missions. The priority survey areas tend to change on a daily basis as the government gets more information on which outlying islands have been hardest hit. Our first mission will focus on an area comprised of informal settlements.
Dawn starts to break at 0500. We haven’t gotten much sleep.
At 0600, we arrive at the designated meeting point, the Beach Bar. This will be our base of operations for this morning’s mission.
The flight plans for the hexacopters are ready to go. We have clearance from Air Traffic Control (ATC) to fly until 0830 as manned aircraft start operating extensively after 0900. So in complex airspaces like this one in Vanuatu’s Port Vila, we only fly very early in the morning and after 1700 in the evening. We have ATC’s direct phone number and are in touch with the tower at all times.
Could this be the one and only SXSW 2015 bag in Vanuatu?
All our multirotor UAVs have been tested once again and are now ready to go. The government has already communicated to nearby villages that UAVs will be operating between 0630-0830. We aim to collect aerial imagery at a resolution of 4cm-6cm throughout our missions.
An old basketball court; perfect for take-off & landing.
And of course, when we’re finally ready to fly, it starts to pour. Other challenges include an ash cloud from a nearby volcano. We’ve also been told that kids here are pro’s with slingshots (which is one reason why the government informed local villagers of the mission; i.e., to request that kids not use the UAVs for target practice).
After some delays, we are airborne at last.
Operating the UAViators DJI Phantom…
… Which I’m using purely for documentary purposes. In coming days, we’ll be providing our government partners with a hands-on introduction on how to operate Phantom II’s. Building local capacity is key; which is why this action item is core to the Humanitarian UAV Network’s Code of Conduct.
Can you spot the hexacopter? While there’s only one in the picture below, we actually have two in the air at different altitudes which we are operating by Extended Line of Site and First Person View as a backup.
More aerial shots I took using the Phantom (not for damage assessment; simply for documentary purposes).
Can you spot the basketball court?
Large clouds bring back the rain; visibility is reduced. We have to suspend our flights; will try again after 1700.
Meanwhile, my Phantom’s GoPro snaps this close up picture on landing.
Stay tuned for updates and in particular the very high resolution aerial imagery that we’ll be posting to MapBox in coming days; along with initial analysis carried out by multiple partners including Humanitarian OpenStreetMap (HOT) and QCRI‘s MicroMappers. Many thanks to MapBox for supporting our efforts. We will also be overlaying the aerial imagery analysis over this MicroMappers crisis map of ground-based pictures of disaster damage in order to triangulate the damage assessment results. Check out the latest update here.
In the meantime, more information on this Humanitarian UAV Mission to Vanuatu–spearheaded by the World Bank in very close collaboration with the Government and SPC–can be found on the Humanitarian UAV Network (UAViators) Ops page here. UAViators is an initiative I launched at QCRI following Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines in 2013. More on UAViators and the use of humanitarian UAVs in my new book Digital Humanitarians.
Important: this blog post is a personal update written in my personal capacity; none of the above is in any way shape or form a formal communique or press release by any of the partners. Official updates will be provided by the Government of Vanuatu and World Bank directly. Please contact me here for official media requests; kindly note that my responses will need to be cleared by the Government & Bank first.
I thrive when working across disciplines, building diverse cross-cutting coalitions to create, translate and apply innovative strategies driven by shared values. This has enabled the 20+ organizations I’ve worked with, and those I’ve led, to accelerate meaningful and inclusive social impact.
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