How Flying Robots Might Prevent Illegal activities happening in the Forest - Summary Analysis Draft #4

How Flying Robots Might Prevent Illegal activities happening in the Forest - Summary Analysis Draft #4

MEC1281

Summary Analysis

Draft #4 

By Alexander Quah

1st Feb 2021

According to the article “The Flying Robot Might Prevent Deforestation” by Morgen Peck (2012), flying drones were a possible key in acting as a lookout to prevent and stop illegal activities in a forest. In Brazil, illegal deforestation and fires were some of the events affecting the rainforest. Due to low-level surveillance in the rainforest, drug trafficking and mining were also easier to execute. As such, Peck (2012) proposed the use of Quadrotor drones to navigate through the rainforests, acting as a lookout for illegal activities that are happening. The article had outlined the advantages of using Quadrotor drones in 2012 as they were able to fly from side to side, avoid obstacles and even learn to adapt to changes on the go. Additionally, Quadrotor drones were able to sense the environment without direct connection to other drones. The goal of this project was to reduce or stop illegal activities with the use of Quadrotor drones. 

However, the author provided insufficient evidence for the drones being capable of stopping a range of illegal activities. They are limited to being the “eyes of the forests”, and can also be easily countered by illegal activists.

The main limitation of the Quadrotor drones is that they are only limited to act as the eyes of the forests. For instance, drones were donated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) to organizations to protect the Amazon rainforest (Pfeifer, 2020). They are currently on patrol to monitor illegal deforestation and forest fires. On the first day of deployment, illegal deforestation was captured by the drones in the Amazon rainforest. However, the patrol team could only pick up the footage and monitor the situation. As the drones did not pose a threat, the illegal activities could not be deterred, and law enforcement only arrived after the deed was completed. Government intervention is the only effective measure, but due to rampant corruption in the private sector and the government, this results in an inadequate and flawed policy and legal framework (Food Agriculture Organisation, 2020). This further emphasises the limitation of the drones, which only act as a surveillance tool.

Quadrotor drones are unable to track illegal activities such as poaching, smuggling and trafficking, which occur in either very dense forests or at night, as they are unable to fully capture nocturnal activities in the forest. Though drones are not able to capture nocturnal activities in the jungle, thermal imaging technology have existed and is being implemented in Quadrotors to allow the capture of images at night. This advancement in design allows easy capturing of the heat signatures of mammals, as well as equipment that emits heat, such as vehicles for transportation. This function is very effective in the tracking of human activities in areas where drones can fly with ease, such as urban areas. Despite this advancement, are not built to manoeuvre in the dark. Drones equipped with thermal imaging technology is priced higher, deterring the owners to test them out at the risk of losing them. Trees and vines are undetectable by thermal imaging as they do not emit enough heat to be distinguished properly by the thermal sensing camera, similarly to flying blind. Currently, drones are not built and designed to withstand the flight over deep forests or at night, preventing them from tracking the illegal activist throughout their journey (Globalconversation, 2020). 

Lastly, drones can be easily countered with many means. Massey (2013) states that the evolution of the brain is the most obvious example of how we evolve to adapt. Humans have adapted so much that it allowed us to live in different environment and climates (BBC, 2020). Once the illegal activists find that the drones of the opposition are hindering their activities, they would learn to adapt to the changes to avoid, counter or even disarm the opposing drones. Skylock, an anti-drone system company has invented many counter-drone systems such as Dronelock, jamming systems for drones and even control taking of the opposing parties drones. Currently, drones are readily obtainable for purchase and modified drones could even be used to counter the existing drones in the market. “Perhaps you’ve seen online photos and videos of drones with attached guns, bombs, fireworks, flamethrowers, and other dangerous items.” (Federal Aviation Administration, 2019). The above-supporting articles show how easy it is for drone owners to modify their drones with weapons, counters drones with advanced technology which are made easily available, as well as the ability of the illegal activitists to adapt to changes.

In conclusion, drones are not effective in reducing illegal activities. More upgrades and research must be done to improve the design and programme of the drones. The most important system that needs improvement, would be the structure of the opposing organizations such as the prevention of government and private sectors corruptions from happening, to prevent illegal activities from happening.

 

References

BBC Earth. (2020). Human adaptation to their environment. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/Cascade/index.html?appid=eb15693c3dcc421a8c117b7657b7736e

Dronefly. (2020). Firefighting drone infographic. https://www.dronefly.com/firefighting-drones-drones-in-the-field-infographic

Federal Aviation Administration (2019). Drones and Weapons, A Dangerous Mix. https://www.faa.gov/news/updates/?newsId=94424

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. (2020). Illegal activities in the Forest and their root causes. http://www.fao.org/3/a0146e/A0146E06.htm

Global Conservation. (2021). UAV drones becoming valuable tools in fighting illegal deforestation in global conservation projects. https://globalconservation.org/news/uav-drones-becoming-valuable-tools-fighting-illegal-deforestatio/

Jones, J. (2018). 10 Largest Forests in the World. https://largest.org/nature/forests/

Lumen Learning. (2020). Human Adaptations. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/culturalanthropology/chapter/human-adaptations/#:~:text=Humans%20have%20biological%20plasticity%2C%20or,a%20population%20with%20its%20environment.

Massey, N. (2013). Humans may be the most adaptive species. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-may-be-most-adaptive-species/

Peck, M. (2012). How Flying Robots Might Prevent Deforestation. http//:mashable.com/2012/03/20/flying-robots-deforestation/

Pfeifer, H. (2020). Amazon tribes are using drones to track deforestation in Brazilian rainforest. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/09/01/americas/amazon-drones-brazil-deforestation-cte-spc-intl/index.html

Schaft, P. (2018). Firefighting Drones Aim to Fly Higher, Help save Lives. https://www.roboticsbusinessreview.com/unmanned/firefighting-drones-aim-to-fly-higher-save-lives/

Skylock. (2020). Counter Drone Systems. https://www.skylock1.com/counter-drone-systems/?utm_source=google_ads&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=%2Bcounter%20%2Bdrone&utm_campaign=asia&gclid=Cj0KCQjw3duCBhCAARIsAJeFyPUITErhTy38oRB3l1ztslGKjFwe94TiKC7YqdfvBEwaH3u90SDFFUsaAuCUEALw_wcB

 

Last edit: 08/04/2021