During September and October, CTM’s Aerial Missions Unit provided support to natural resources specialists from Naval Facilities Engineering Command and Naval Base Ventura County evaluating the potential use of small unmanned aircraft to collect mandated field data for threatened and endangered species. Operating 3DRobotics Iris and Aero aircraft systems over the beaches at Naval Base Ventura County-Point Mugu, AMU demonstrated the capabilities of multi-rotor and fixed-wing aircraft to substitute for personnel on foot to survey nesting sites of local California Least Tern and Snowy Plover populations.
Proposed benefits of employing unmanned aircraft in field surveys include improved data quality, increased cost-effectiveness and personnel safety, reduced resource disturbance and damage, enhanced management of threatened and endangered species, and support to the mission of through prevention of mission and operations impediments.
For more information about the Navy’s environmental survey efforts, please visit the NAVFAC Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center’s website at: https://www.navfac.navy.mil/navfac_worldwide/specialty_centers/exwc.html
For more information about CTM’s Aerial Missions Unit, please contact CTM at mailto:ctm@gt2.orgor (657) 229-5776.