Oct. 25, 2007 -- As the California wildfires force residents out of their homes and push firefighters to their limits, a single unmanned aircraft is staying one step ahead.
NASA's Ikhana took off Wednesday morning from Edwards Air Force Base, Calif., on a 10-hour mission to observe seven wildfires still raging in the southern part of the state. Without the need for food, water, bathroom breaks, or fuel in a 24-hour period, the solitary drone used an onboard sensor to collect data, process it into images, and send those via satellite to firefighting command centers in real time.
"Manned airplanes have to land and download the data. You may not get the data for three or four or five hours," said Brent Cobleigh, the mission's project manager, who works out of the NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, Calif.
"We are getting it to the commanders within five to ten minutes," he said.
Getting the images that quickly could save lives. Late this past summer, Ikhana did just that. It was enlisted to image the Zaca Fire in Santa Barbara County. According to Cobleigh, a command post was about to put a group of firefighters on the front line, but didn't realize another fire had started downwind. But when images came in from Ikhana, the firefighters were not deployed.
"They were going to put firefighters between two fires and the data prevented that," said Cobleigh.
Ikhana has an onboard sensor that gathers image data not only in the visible light part of the spectrum but also in the infrared and near-infrared parts. That means it can see in the dark and cut through a column of smoke 30,000 feet thick as though it wasn't there. What it reveals are hot spots, flames, and even temperature differences that can mean the difference between fight or flee.
"An incident commander can move resources to combat that part of the event that he's dealing with or move troops or firefighters out of harm's way," said Vincent Ambrosia, project principal investigator at NASA Ames, whose team developed the primary sensor onboard Ikhana.
Flying between about 23,000 feet and 25,000 feet, the aircraft scans the terrain back and forth in parallel lines. The sensor collects data continuously. In the current 10-hour mission, the device will gather enough information to create between 50 to 70 images, said Cobleigh, each revealing more than 36 square miles of land.
The data is processed on the aircraft, up-linked to a satellite and then downloaded to a ground station. From there it's delivered to a computer server at NASA Ames. The imagery is then combined with Google Earth maps. Command center personnel can view the images on their computer screens and then delegate local firefighters accordingly.
For this mission, the Ikhana team flew the craft over each of seven fires at least twice on Wednesday. And it's ready to do the same on Thursday or Friday, if necessary.
Once its wildfire days are done this season, Ikhana will tackle more humble pursuits: airborne sensing of the atmosphere, ocean and ground.
But next season, when the Santa Ana winds begin to blow again, Ikhana could be back on the job.
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