Insitu Drone Used to Monitor Bushland Fires; Andrew Duggan, Kevin Moore Comment

Insitu’s Australia-based subsidiary has demonstrated its unmanned aircraft system to observe bushland fires for the New South Wales Rural Fire Service.

Insitu Pacific deployed the ScanEagle aircraft in January to report on fire movement across the Wollemi National Park bushland through the General Dynamics Mediaware-built video streaming system, Insitu Pacific said Tuesday.

Kevin Moore, chief technology officer of General Dynamics Mediaware, said the company’s ScanEagle-mounted D-VEX video analytics captured images in order to help the New South Wales Rural Fire Service monitor the fires.

Firefighters worked to evaluate the fire front and identify high-risk areas using the imagery.

“The main objective now is to continue to work with CASA to enable flexible airspace approvals for various emergency response scenarios,” said Andrew Duggan, Insitu Pacific managing director.

Bingen, Wash.-headquartered Insitu Inc. is a subsidiary of Boeing Co.