National Uncrewed Systems Office

Please don’t walk on the biocrust!

Drone's eye view of a USGS remote pilot during a biocrust mission near Moab, UT

NUSO UAS pilot Matt Burgess captures an image of himself while landing a UAS after a flight over a biocrust site near Moab, Utah.

USGS researcher Victoria Scholl (NUSO) returns after collecting previously deployed scale bar and ground control point survey targets along the Paleocene Poison Canyon Formation in the Cimarron Canyon, New Mexico.

USGS scientist Victoria Scholl (NUSO) places a scale bar and ground control point survey target along the Paleocene Poison Canyon Formation in the Cimarron Canyon. GPS data from these targets and derived from the UAS collected imagery helps ensure high positional and geometric accuracy of georeferenced data products including 3D models.

UAS ground control point survey targets deployed along the Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico

One of the ground control point survey targets deployed along the Paleocene Poison Canyon Formation in the Cimarron Canyon and used to provide accurate GPS data during the UAS data collection flights.

USGS remote pilot Todd Burton replaces UAS batteries during a mission at the Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico. Batteries last for only around 15 minutes, therefore a minimum of six sets are typically taken into the field which allows each used set to be cooled down, recharged, and then reused in the field.

USGS scientist Mark Bauer reviews the imagery being acquired from a UAS at the Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico

USGS remote pilot Mark Bauer flies a UAS with a stabilized gimbal with vibration dampening mounted with a Sony A7r camera with a locked focus using a 14mm wide angle lens at the Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico.

Prior to the UAS flights USGS researchers Amy Gilmer, Theresa Schwartz, and Victoria Scholl hike up Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico to place ground control targets and scale bars.

Prior to the UAS flights USGS researchers Amy Gilmer, Theresa Schwartz, and Victoria Scholl hike up Cimarron Canyon in New Mexico to place ground control targets and scale bars.

In June 2021, eight months after the East Troublesome Fire burned over 193,000 acres in Colorado, NUSO performed UAS data collection over several of the burn scars representing different fire intensity levels and fuel types.

USGS scientist Matt Burgess pilots a UAS during a joint USGS NUSO, USGS Western Ecological Research Center, USGS Western Geographic Science Center, USGS Spectroscopy Lab, and California State University Monterey Bay multi-scale hyperspectral remote sensing data collection mission in San Francisco Bay, California.

Ricoh GR natural color image taken from a UAS showing the intertidal biofilm, a slimy green layer of fungi and bacteria growing on top of mud, in San Francisco Bay, California. 

Intertidal biofilm, a slimy green layer of fungi and bacteria growing on top of mud, inhabits mudflats and is an essential component of shorebirds’ diets in San Francisco Bay, California.

USGS scientist Joe Adams (NUSO) setting up a GPS base station for a snow mapping project in Winter Park, Colorado. GPS base station data is used in post-processing to improve the geospatial accuracy of UAS collected data.

Have you heard about biking to work? Well, how about trying snowshoeing to work?

Two UAS fly in formation during the joint NUSO and USGS Water Resources Mission Area snow water equivalent project in Winter Park Colorado. These two UAS are carrying identical, experimental, software-defined radar sensors for measuring snow depth and density.

USGS researcher Joe Adams (NUSO) mounts a Ricoh GRII camera to a UAS that will be flying transects to collect natural color imagery during the snow water equivalent (SWE) project in Winter Park Colorado.

A FireFLY6 Pro vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) fixed-wing UAS sits on the ground between flights at the Corral Bluffs study area to support fossil studies by the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.