In the mountains over Thane Road, every snow storm, wind storm or an explosion that is caused by humans can move snow around. The snowpackas well as the possibility of avalanches is always changing.
Avalanche expert Pat Dryer with the Alaska Department of Transportation oversees these changes. When he’s looking at on the slopes at sea level, there’s plenty that he’s not able to observe.
“What other potential hazards might be up there that aren’t obvious at a distance?” Dryer said. “The possibility of flying over the top of the slope and work that out would be beneficial.”
Thanks to drone technology, he’s capable of doing exactly that. This winter The state Department of Transportation launched a new program to utilize drones to provide faster, more precise avalanche monitoring on Thane Road.
Dryer and his crew began testing drone missions on occasion during the winter months, and they frequently go on fieldwork excursions. However, these methods are not much like snapshots. They are able to capture a single moment in time and take a look at only a tiny portion of the avalanche area.
The project in collaboration with the drone maker DJI will attempt to provide a better image using drones that are more frequent and automated flights.
“You could think of it like lawn mowers that cut your lawn” stated Grant Hosticka an engineer from DJI engineer who assisted in begin the project. Lawnmowers cut grass by making several passes across the yard, patch by patches. “And drones can accomplish that. They do this by taking pictures which overlap.”
The photos could aid avalanche experts like Dryer to map and model the snowpack with a method known as photogrammetry.
“That’s taking many photos and stitching them to create a fresh aerial picture,” Dryer said. “What we’re creating is an elevation model that is digital using the image. In this instance it’s the height of the entire snow.”
When they repeat the process repeatedly throughout the winter season it will help them understand the amount of snow that has accumulated in the start zones of avalanches. This could aid in estimating the potential size of avalanches. It could also help in planning the timing of artificial avalanches that occur on Thane Road each winter.
The drones are automatically launched via a new drone dock which was set up close to Thane Road last month. It’s a stylish, white box, which is basically the ultimate parking spot for drones — with charging ports and hook-ups to allow remote data collection during flights.
The main benefit of this dock is that it allows drones to fly and land without the need for a human operator in the ground. For now Department of Transportation as well as drone makers are monitoring the test flights closely in order to iron out the bumps. The objective is to understand more about drones battery life, storage of data and resiliency to the weather in Juneau.
A small number of DJI docks are installed throughout North America. Hosticka claims that Juneau is an ideal place to further develop the technology.
“To go to Alaska and experience the most severe weather like that,” he said. “So we can ensure that this team can check how the equipment is performing under this kind of weather.”
There are regulatory obstacles to over come. There is a need to overcome the Federal Aviation Administration has not yet fully revised its rules for drone flights that are unmanned. The avalanche experts of Juneau are working on getting approvals that will allow drone flights to be automated.
Although the avalanche season is coming to an end up for urban environments, Dryer said there will be plenty of time to continue refining the technology.
“There’s the possibility of Avalanches in the mountains for the next few months,” he said. “So we’ll continue to use the technology and try to test it as best we can in order to find out how much is possible.”
When next year’s snow begins to fall drones’ missions could alter the way that avalanche experts view the snowpack.
