The 24-Hour Western States UAV Fire Mission: Sensor and Intelligent
Management Systems

Vincent G. Ambrosia[^1]

CA. State University - Monterey Bay / NASA-Ames Research Center\
Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000, US

Dr. Susan M. Schoenung[^2]\
*Longitude 122 West, Inc.\
Menlo Park, CA 94025, US*

Steven S. Wegener [^3]

BAERI, Inc. Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000, US

and

Francis Enomoto[^4]

NASA-Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA 94035-1000, US

The 24-Hour UAV Western States UAV Fire Mission planned for August 2006
is a demonstration of four technologies in support of wildfire
sub-orbital sensor imaging. The four technologies are: high altitude
long endurance (HALE) UAV capabilities, improved, multi-channel sensor
developments, improved OTH payload / real-time data communications
capabilities, and intelligent mission management. The objectives
include: demonstrate successful, high altitude data collection by a UAV
over wildfires within National Airspace; showcase UAV platform
capabilities; improve payload data collection system capabilities;
demonstrate telemetry capabilities, and enhance image geo-rectification
and data / information decision support system via an intelligent
mission management scenario. The demonstration project is one element of
a NASA-funded collaboration between NASA-Ames and the US Forest Service
to develop, test and evaluate improved concept technologies enabling
enhanced decision capabilities during wildfire incidents. The
demonstration will occur over wildfires in the Western US during August
2006. Planned operations include the GA-ASI ALTAIR UAV platform, coupled
with a new line-scanner imaging sensor in development at NASA-Ames. The
12-channel VIS-IR-TIR sensor is configured specifically for fire
detection and measurement. Data from the instrument will be sent in
near-real-time via an OTH communications system, through satellite relay
to the NIFC fire command center and to an Incident Command Team on a
wildfire event. An intelligent mission management agent will also be
demonstrated to facilitate platform "understanding", sensor
intelligence, mission parameters and planning activities. These
demonstrated capabilities will provide the USFS fire Incident Managers
with the information and potential tools necessary to make more rapid
and improved decisions on wildfire management strategies.

# Nomenclature {#nomenclature .unnumbered}

*ALTAIR* = UAV Airborne Platform built by GA-ASI

*AOFC* = Adaptive Optimal Flight Control

*BAER =* Burned Area Emergency Response

*C&C =* Command and Control

*CDE* = Collaborative Decision Environment

*COA* = Certificate of Authorization

*DGPS* = Differential Global Positioning System

*EOS* = Earth Observing System

*FAA* = Federal Aviation Administration

*FiRE* = First Response Experiment

*GA-ASI* = General Atomics -- Aeronautical Systems, Inc.

*GCS* = Ground Control Station

*HALE* = High Altitude -- Long Endurance

*ICC* = Incident Command Center

*IMM* = Intelligent Mission Management

*IVSM* = Integrated Vehicle System Management

*LN2* = Liquid Nitrogen

*LOS* = Line-Of-Sight

*MODIS* = Moderate-resolution Imaging System

*NAS* = National Airspace System

*NIFC* = National Interagency Fire Center

*OGC* = Open Geospatial Consortium

*OTH* = Over-The-Horizon

*RAWS* = Remote Access Weather Station

*RSAC* = Remote Sensing Applications Center (USFS)

*RSS* = Rapid Response System

*SRTM* = Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission

TE = Thermo-electric

*TIR* = Thermal Infrared

*UAV* = Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle

*USFS* = United States Forest Service

*WRAP* = Wildfire Research and Applications Partnership

# Introduction

The overarching goal of the Western States UAV Fire Mission is to
demonstrate the collection and distribution of real-time,
geo-registered, thermal multi-channel wildfire image data from a UAV
operating at altitudes between 20K and 45K feet and flying a large
segment of the continental western US within the National Airspace
(NAS). The mission demonstration will occur in late summer 2006 and
involve flight and data collection over various fire events in the
western United States, providing critical thermal infrared imagery to
fire ICCs through an Over-The Horizon (OTH) satellite communications
data stream. The mission will encompass a region of the entire western
United States, from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean and from
the Canadian border to the Mexican border, and be flown over a 24-hour
period (Fig. 1).

> ![](media/image1.jpeg){width="2.9145833333333333in"
> height="3.173611111111111in"}
>
> **Figure 1. A conceptual illustration of the planned UAV Western
> States UAV Fire Mission**. *The ALTAIR capabilities will allow for a
> 24-hour mission in a region encompassing the entire western US.*

The Western States UAV Fire Mission will leverage development in
telemetry enhancements, improved imaging capabilities and improved
characteristics of the ALTAIR UAV platform to demonstrate a mission
encompassing the entire western US. Aircraft and sensor autonomy
developments being pursued in a synergistic NASA program will also be
incorporated into our mission plans. This long-duration mission will
allow multiple thermal-IR digital data acquisitions from a new
NASA-Ames-developed 12-channel WILDFIRE scanner over numerous fires
spread throughout the Western US. The +4000 nm endurance of the ALTAIR
will allow lingering over many of these potential fire events. Data will
be transmitted from the aircraft to a communications satellite and to
the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), located in Boise, Idaho.
Planned enhancements for this mission include full, on-board
fire-image-modeling processing, as well as real-time, terrain-corrected,
geo-rectification of all data sets. Fully corrected data will be
telemetered and in the Incident Command Center control within 10-minutes
of data collection from the UAV.

Operational control over specific fire events will be dictated by the
NIFC personnel to direct the platform to incidents deemed of the highest
priority. The aircraft-vectoring process will also rely on the use of
the USFS MODIS Rapid Response System (RRS) data to derive fire locations
and incident priority. That information will be fed through a
Collaborative Decision Environment (CDE) to derive a platform / sensor
driven capability to acquire pertinent and necessary data within the
performance characteristics of the system.

This paper highlights the concepts, plans and engineering systems
enhancements necessary for performing the long-duration Western States
UAV Fire Mission. The focus of these efforts is directed towards sensor
development, telemetry integration, platform considerations,
intelligent, sensor-driven mission management as well as detailing
mission operations within the National Airspace.

# Mission Science and Technology Development

The Western States UAV Fire Mission is an enhanced "follow-on" to the
highly successful FiRE project^1^. The objective of this mission is to
demonstrate successful, high altitude data collection by a UAV over a
wildfire within the National Airspace. The purpose of the Western States
UAV Fire Mission is to further demonstrate enhancements to the UAV
platform capabilities, improvements to the payload data collection
system, telemetry capabilities, and image geo-rectification and data /
information decision support system enhancement.

The overarching goal of the mission is to demonstrate methodologies to
collect and distribute real-time, geo-registered, multispectral wildfire
image data from a long-duration mission-capable UAV operating at
altitudes between 20K and 45K feet. The UAV will operate from Gray
Butte, California. We anticipate a mission capability of 24+ hours over
various fire events throughout the western United States, providing
critical thermal infrared imagery to an IC.

To successfully perform the Western States UAV Fire Mission,
developments in platform, payload, data telemetry, image collection and
use, and data distribution and mission management capabilities have to
be undertaken^2^. Those systems enhancements and technology developments
are addressed in the following sections.

## UAV Platform

The Western States UAV Fire Mission will utilize the GA-ASI ALTAIR UAV
platform (Fig. 2a). The ALTAIR, a high-altitude version of the Predator
B, was designed as a scientific and commercial research platform for
NASA. Built in partnership with NASA, the ALTAIR has the payload
capacity to easily accommodate large sensor packages and electronics,
and can be fitted with an external instrument "belly" pod as well. To
meet aviation authority requirements for unmanned flights in the NAS,
the ALTAIR is configured with a fault-tolerant dual-architecture flight
control system and triple redundant avionics for increased reliability.
The 4000+ nautical miles (6437+ km) endurance of the ALTAIR will allow
lingering over many of the potential fire events in an extensive region.

The ALTAIR aircraft is controlled by a solid-state digital ground
control station (GCS) through a C-Band line-of-sight (LOS) data link
(Fig. 2b). In addition to the LOS link, the ALTAIR also has a Ku-Band
satellite data link installed for routine (OTH) operations (Table 1).

**a.** ![](media/image2.png){width="2.7743055555555554in"
height="1.8576388888888888in"} **b.**
![](media/image3.jpeg){width="2.8020833333333335in"
height="1.8458333333333334in"}

**Figure 2. The General Atomics ALTAIR UAV (a), and the UAV Ground
Control Station (GCS) (b)***. The ALTAIR UAV is a scientific-use variant
of the Predator aircraft platform. The ground control station (b) is
used to control aircraft operations through LOS or OTH communications.
Payload data can be delivered through this communications link as well.*

> **Table 1. General Atomics -- Aeronautical Systems, Inc. (GA-ASI)
> ALTAIR^®^ UAV system specifications).^3^**

  ----------------- ---------------------------------------------------------
  **Dimensions**    Wing Span 84 ft.; Length 36.2 ft.; Height 11.8 ft.

  **Weights**       Max Fuel Wt. 3500 lb; Payload Wt. 750 lb.; Max GTOW 7700
                    lbs.

  **Propulsion**    700 BHP TPE331-10 Allied Signal Turboprop with McCauley
                    3-bladed, hydraulic, constant speed, variable/reverse
                    pitch propeller

  **Performance**   Max Altitude: 55,000 ft.; Endurance: 32 Hours (with 700
                    lb payload); Cruise/Loiter Speed 144 KIAS; Range: 4500 nm

  **Payload Specs** Size: 80"L x 35"H x 40"W, (Adaptable); Max Wt. 750 lbs.,
                    Payload

  **Shipping Size** Aircraft w/o prop: 36.5'L x 5.3'H x 6'W; Prop: 8'x8'x3'

  **Navigation**    Three integrated IMU systems and three Differential GPS
                    (optional P-code)

  **Avionics**      C-Band LOS Range: 100 nm; 500 Kbs Ku-band OTH Operations;
                    autonomous flight (no data link)

  **FTS**           GA-ASI Rocket deployed parachute and NASA Flight
                    Termination System

  **Landing Gear**  Normal tricycle type retractable landing gear.
  ----------------- ---------------------------------------------------------

The WILDFIRE payload will be integrated on the ALTAIR in spring 2006 and
ground and flight-tested prior to the Western States UAV Fire Mission.
Due to limitations in available nose payload space, the WILDFIRE scanner
and all associated electronics will be reconfigured into a belly pod,
freeing the nose payload bay for other small instrumentation (Fig.3).
Other instrumentation will include a high spatial resolution (16 Mpixel)
digital camera, and the Skyball, providing visible, IR and TIR video of
the targeted areas for WILDFIRE scanner imaging.

![](media/image4.wmf){width="4.875in" height="2.421527777777778in"}

> **Figure 3. The ALTAIR instrumentation pod schematic.** *This pod
> configuration, containing the WILDFIRE scanner is proposed for the
> Western States UAV Fire Mission.*

## Fire Sensor System

A former multi-use NASA facility sensor system is being completely
re-built into a modular UAV-capable system for use by the science and
applications community. The WILFIRE scanner is composed of a Daedalus
AADS-1268 scanning system that originally had three flight
configurations: as a LANDSAT Thematic Mapper Simulator (TMS), an
Airborne Ocean Color Imager (AOCI,) and the Multi-spectral Atmospheric
Mapping Sensor (MAMS). The TMS was used for land-cover studies, and also
for wildfire imaging; the MAMS was used for severe storm studies, and
supported the CAMEX experiments; the AOCI was used as a Coastal Zone
Color Scanner satellite simulator. This configuration flew primarily on
the NASA ER-2, high-altitude aircraft platform. The new system is
currently being reconfigured into a fully functional UAV-compatible
sensor with a similar variety of scan-head configurations, including
WILDFIRE configuration (Fig. 4).

![](media/image5.jpeg){width="3.1597222222222223in"
height="2.401388888888889in"}

**Figure 4. WILDFIRE Scanner Digitizer Module with Pressure Housings and
Motor Controller and the Motor/ Mirror Module installed in the scanning
optics module.**

The 12-channel WILDFIRE Scanner is being modified at the NASA-Ames
Research Center Airborne Sensor Facility (ASF) for operations on-board
both manned and UAV platforms. The instrument has been modified to
fulfill scientific requirements for fire imaging, with two new TIR
channels to allow measurement of fire (and other hot sources) (Table 2).
The two TIR channels simulate those found on the proposed
Visible/Infrared Imager/Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument, scheduled
for orbital operations aboard the National Polar-orbiting Operational
Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) satellite series^4^. These two
channels replace the original AADS-1268 channels 11 and 12, which were
wide-band (8.5-14μm) low- and high-gain TIR channels.

**Table 2. WILDFIRE 12-channel Scanner Specifications.**

  --------------------------- -------------------------------------------
  **[Spectral                 **[Wavelength μm]{.underline}**
  Band]{.underline}**         

  1                           0.42- 0.45

  2                           0.45- 0.52 (TM1)

  3                           0.52- 0.60 (TM2)

  4                           0.60- 0.62

  5                           0.63- 0.69 (TM3)

  6                           0.69- 0.75

  7                           0.76- 0.90 (TM4)

  8                           0.91- 1.05

  9                           1.55- 1.75 (TM5)

  10                          2.08- 2.35 (TM7)

  11                          3.60- 3.79 (VIIRS M12)

  12                          10.26-11.26 (VIIRS M15)

                              

  **Total Field of View:**    
  42.5 or 85.9 degrees        
  (selectable)                

  **IFOV:** 1.25 mrad or      
  2.5mrad ( selectable)       

  **Spatial Resolution:** 3   
  -- 50 meters (variable      
  based on alt)               
  --------------------------- -------------------------------------------

Modifications to the WILDFIRE scanner include the addition of a wireless
remote interface control capability to allow operations on UAV platforms
and the development of a fully pressurized containment vessel (pressure
"can") to allow system operations in adverse temperature and pressure
conditions (long-duration, high-altitude missions). The inclusion of
both TE and Sterling Detector cooling mechanisms for the TIR channels,
precludes the need for LN2 maintenance and allows the sensor to operate
for extended periods without "down-time" to refill instrument dewars (as
required with LN2-cooled TIR detector systems). Modifications also
include a pressurized electronics housing, 16-bit Digitizer w/ Auxiliary
CPU, New Scanning Optics Module, Solid State Storage Media, and
long-duration autonomous operation capabilities. These sensor
developments will allow autonomous or remote operations of the sensor
package aboard a UAV platform during the wildfire imaging mission. Other
major enhancements include the inclusion of more spectral channels in
the short-wave IR and visible portion of the spectrum. The scanning
optics is also improved, allowing for a more robust system with improved
imaging capabilities. The new 12-channel Fire scanner is being
configured for both autonomous and remote operations and will be flight
tested in October 2005.

## Data Telemetry

During the Western States UAV Fire Mission, the aircraft will be
controlled via the Ku-band, OTH data link. The aircraft will be operated
from the GCS located at Gray Butte, California (near Edwards Air Force
Base and NASA-Dryden Flight Research Center). The Ku-band communication
link is established from the GCS, through a commercial satellite
provider, to the antenna configured on the ALTAIR in the forward payload
bay (Fig. 5). The command and control (C&C) link is also shared with
instrumentation telemetry capabilities that are required for downlink
from the aircraft payloads.

![](media/image7.jpeg){width="3.125in" height="2.089583333333333in"}

**Figure 5 (Left). A schematic of the ALTAIR instrument payload bay.
Note the location of the Skyball tracking camera assembly hanging
beneath the payload bay.** *The WILDFIRE scanner components would not
fit in the nose under current fairing restrictions. (Right) An image of
the forward nose payload area with the 30" Ku-band C&C / Data Telemetry
antenna in the center of the image.*

The Ku-band system operates at a potential data throughput of 500 Kbs.
This telemetry link is shared with the C&C, which utilizes a small
fraction of that bandwidth (\~9.6 Kbs). The Skyball system, mounted
under the nose payload area will be used for targeting and alignment of
the platform and the WILDFIRE scanner during approach to a targeted
fire. The streaming video feed from the Skyball will also be sent over
the Ku-band satellite uplink / downlink to the GCS. At the GCS, the
streaming video will be sent to the CDE as a real-time feed to NIFC,
RSAC, ICs and authorized "client" applications. The WILDFIRE scanner
payload data will be geo-rectified on-board and sent through the
telemetry uplink to the ground node at GA-ASI, then re-distributed via
the CDE.

## Data Management, Processing and Delivery

During the Western States UAV Fire Mission, real-time sensor payload
data will be geo-rectified, terrain-corrected and sent via the telemetry
link to the CDE environment. The telemetered data will consist of a
3-band, VIS-IR-TIR image of the target areas. Any band combination can
be specified of the 12 available spectral channels. Navigation data
onboard the aircraft will include an Applanix PosAv™ system for
precision geo-location of the data and platform orientation. The PosAv
navigation data set includes variables such as: date and time of
acquisition (for each scan line of data), geographic coordinates from
the onboard DGPS, altitude, aircraft speed, pitch, roll, and yaw, scan
line count, heading, and other system health and location variables. The
navigation file is processed through a "scanner model" of the WILDFIRE
configuration to provide a geo-correction of the telemetered image data.
All automated geo-rectification procedures will be "ported" to the
Device Link Module computer for real-time acquisition, image
enhancement, and geo-rectification. Shuttle Radar Topographic Mission
(SRTM) topographic data for the entire US will reside on the on-board
computer and will be used for automated terrain-corrected
geo-rectification of the image data. The SRTM data will be integrated
with the navigation information, the aircraft attitude information and
the "sensor model" data to derive a terrain-corrected GEOTIFF file of a
captured scene area. A Tiff World File (TWF) will be coincidently
developed with appropriate geo-location variables for data mapping. The
GEOTIFF will allow easy integration into the standard GIS package (ESRI
ARC™) used by the USFS at regional offices and at ICCs.

Various fire-related data sets will be generated during the mission. One
data set will consist of a "standard" TIR-IR-VIS band combination to
showcase active fire regimes and gradients of hot regions (back fires,
smoldering ash, coals, etc) (Fig. 6a). Another planned image data
product delivery is the spectral band combination that depicts burned
area severity. This data is utilized by the BAER teams to assess burn
severity within 72 hours of fire containment, in order to take necessary
and rapid rehabilitation work (replanting, soil erosion control, stream
drainage protection and clearing). The BAER teams primarily relay on
satellite resources (Landsat, SPOT, etc), but due to the latency of the
orbit, obscuring cloud conditions during acquisition and product
delivery delay times, the data is often too old (or unavailable) for use
on the rehabilitation work. The BAER imagery will be provided over fires
under control or recently "in-control" to showcase the capabilities of
utilization of a multispectral airborne system for discriminating burn
severity classes (Fig. 6b).

![](media/image9.jpeg){width="2.25in" height="2.2069444444444444in"}

**Figure 6a. Image of active burning fire front in Southern California
(Marble Fire near Castaic Lake), composed of TIR-IT-VIS spectral
channels***. Figure 6b. Example of BAER imagery for Curve and Williams
Fire, Southern California, depicting various gradients of burn
severity.*

## Intelligent Mission Management System

The Western States UAV Fire Mission will showcase and demonstrate an
Intelligent Mission Management (IMM) / Collaborative Decision
Environment (CDE) to facilitate mission control and performance metrics,
and to rapidly ingest and display platform information, payload data,
moving map displays, and flight profile data. NASA is developing
Intelligent Mission Management (IMM) technology for science missions
employing long-endurance UAVs under the Vehicle System Program -
Autonomous Robust Avionics Project. The IMM ground based component is
the Collaborative Decision Environment (CDE), a ground system that
provides the Mission/Science team with situational awareness,
collaboration, and decision-making tools in a desktop computing
environment. It will be used to support pre-flight planning, integrate
sensing goals into mission plans, monitor mission schedules, direct the
payload system, and visualize and archive acquired data. The CDE will
allow the utilization of ancillary archived and "real-time" data sets
such as GOESS weather information, MODIS data, Landsat, SRTM and other
similar data sets. Remote client access to the CDE is provided to remote
users across wide area networks using Web-Services technology.

The objectives of the IMM / CDE component is to develop, integrate, and
demonstrate a collaborative decision environment with the following
specific objectives:

> **a.)** **Mission-level Decision Support** -- a collaborative
> information portal to enable near real-time decision-making by the
> mission/science team that may be geographically dispersed.
>
> **b.)** **Automated Data Products** -- software for automatically
> gathering and processing airborne, ground-based, and space-based data
> into products/services for mission-level decision support.

**c.)** **Sensor Planning Services** -- use OGC standards to enable a
common interface to monitor and control the science payload by the
mission/science team during mission execution.

The CDE's Java-based 3-tier software architecture is derived from the
Collaborative Information Portal (CIP) developed for the Mars
Exploration Rover mission. CIP capabilities such as secure remote
access, portability, management of heterogeneous data, display of
operational schedules, and broadcasting messages will be enhanced to
meet the near real-time needs of UAV mission decision-makers. In
addition, the CDE will integrate external data products used for
planning and executing a mission, such as weather, satellite data
products, and topographic maps. Since many Earth science data products
are geospatially oriented, the CDE will leverage established and
emerging Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) standards to acquire external
data products via the internet, and an industry standard geographic
information system (GIS) toolkit to visualize them.

![](media/image11.wmf){width="6.448611111111111in"
height="4.00625in"}CDE user requirements have been defined using the
Western States UAV Fire Mission as a reference deployment environment.
The CDE will display EOS-MODIS fire detections, active fire locations
from the US Forest Service databases, satellite imagery of cloud
coverage, geo-rectified thermal imagery from the sensor, and up-to-date
UAV position and heading information. Geographically distributed users
will be able to identify areas of interest, and submit potential
observation targets for aircraft tasking. Additionally, the CDE Schedule
Viewer will provide users with a display of key events planned for the
mission, such as "time-en-route" to the next fire location, time until
next data product availability, local overpass time of pertinent
satellite resources to coordinate simultaneous data collection, and crew
scheduling^5^. The Incident Command Center will be able to continuously
(and in real-time) follow and monitor the condition of the UAV platform
and the swath and profile of the acquiring imaging sensor over a terrain
map. Additional elements that are added to the IMM/CDE include other
critical data sets, like real-time NOAA weather imagery, wind vectors,
MODIS coverage, Remote Access Weather Stations (RAWS), and geo-located
resources (personnel, fire vehicles, etc). This collaborative shared
environment system will be used to appropriately vector the UAV to
emerging targets, to allow flight path reconfiguration, to allow QA/QC
of image data, and to allow real-time communication between various
project elements deployed throughout the country (Fig. 7).

**Figure 7. The Collaborative Decision Environment -- Mission Planning
Element.** *The CDE allows real-time analysis of mission performance
characteristics for the UAV, sensor, and associated ancillary data
elements. MODIS satellite data, used for fire detects, is combined with
real-time GOES weather data to provide a decision environment for UAV /
sensor tasking.*

An element of the mission management system is the Reactive Planner. Key
functions of the reactive planner are the ability to select, schedule,
and command execution of actions that achieve mission goals and handle
unexpected contingencies given constraints and optimization criteria.
Contingencies include failure of the vehicle or payload system, failure
of action to produce desirable results (e.g. blurry image),
interruption, and unexpected threats, opportunities, and new goals.
Constraints include policies (e.g. fuel safety margin, flight procedures
associated with operating in the NAS, resource limitations (e.g. fuel,
power, and memory), time criticalities associated with the goals, and
uncertainty of many types. Optimization criteria include variable
importance, variable urgency, and user preference. The reactive planner
can accept real-time mission objective adjustments and reconfigure its
plans accordingly. Changes to the objectives could originate on the
ground from the CDE or aboard the aircraft from the Integrated Vehicle
Systems Management (IVSM) Sub-Project, Adaptive Optimal Flight Control
(AOFC) Sub-Project, or the payload, resulting in changes to the flight
plan, reversion to production controls/autopilot/flight management
system, envelope limiting/protection, return-to-base under contingency
modes, and possibly even flight termination. These tools will be
demonstrated on-board NASA\'s new Predator-B during a second Western
States UAV Fire Mission scheduled for 2007 (Fig. 8).

![](media/image12.png){width="5.0875in" height="3.765277777777778in"}

> **Fig. 8. Schematic of Intelligent Mission Management (IMM) /
> Collaborative Decision Environment (CDE) System.** *The diagram
> displays the ingestion of various data elements during the mission and
> the sharing and dissemination of pertinent data to the fire community,
> science community and the public.*

## Western States UAV Fire Mission Design

The Western States UAV Fire Mission will require coordination with the
USFS and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA will require
the submission of a Certificate of Authorization (COA) to operate the
UAV in the NAS. The authorization to fly is required to be submitted
approximately 72 hours prior to the mission. This restriction will
necessitate the development of a flight characteristic profile map of
large fire complexes, their location and probable access airspace routes
for the UAV to traverse to over-fly and acquire wildfire imagery. Due to
operational restrictions over major populated regions, a flight profile
map is currently being finalized for FAA review (Fig. 9). The map will
be used to define accessible UAV coverage areas, wildfire locations
within those regions, and aircraft access (or restrictions) within 72
hours of the mission. Timbered, mountainous regions with high fire
potential will be the primary flight-focused regions. These areas are
seen in the violet and blue hachured regions on the map.

![](media/image13.png){width="4.829861111111111in"
height="3.4340277777777777in"}

> **Figure 9. Western States UAV Fire Mission flight planning map***.
> Potential flight areas include the violet hachured region (primary)
> and the blue hachured area (secondary). Red circles indicate high
> density urban areas of potential flight restrictions.*

# Concluding Remarks

The Western States UAV Fire Mission will demonstrate the capabilities of
numerous integrated systems for compatibility, operations, and endurance
aboard a UAV platform. Central to the project mission focus are:
demonstration of the unique capabilities of UAV platforms for flying
HALE missions within the NAS, demonstrating capabilities of remote and
autonomous operations of scanning imaging systems; the ability to
showcase new, innovative OTH satellite communications telemetry
technologies; the demonstration of improved on-board data handling,
processing and image geo-rectification procedures; improvements in fire
data product quality and delivery in a shortened period of time; and
demonstration and utility of an Intelligent Management System and
Collaborative Decision Environment for improved data and information
handling and real-time analysis. The successful integration and
implementation of these technologies will have a profound effect on
improving the decision support system mechanism for disaster-related
events both within the partnering agency (USFS) and with other
associated disaster management and mitigation agencies and
organizations.

The showcasing of NASA and industry payload and UAV technology "melding"
will lead to improved capabilities both within the platforms and imaging
systems. It is anticipated that the Western States UAV Fire Mission
demonstration will lead to new technologies and procedures supporting
anticipated UAV airspace operational and system certification standards.

# Acknowledgments {#acknowledgments .unnumbered}

This research and applications endeavor is supported by the NASA Office
of Earth Science, Earth Science Enterprise, Applications Division, NASA
CAN-02-OES-01, Earth Science REASoN (Research, Education and
Applications Solutions Network) program. Additional support was provided
by the NASA Suborbital Airborne Science Program Office. The authors wish
to acknowledge the support of numerous individuals in the development of
this project and paper: From NASA Headquarters: S. Ambrose, E. Sheffner,
C. Yuhas; from NASA-Ames: S. Dunagan, D. Sullivan, J. Myers, S. Buechel,
M. Fladeland, R. Slye, R, E. Hildum. From NASA-DFRC, the authors would
like to acknowledge F. Cutler, B. Cobleigh and C. Jennison. From the
USFS, the authors would like to acknowledge the partnership and support
of the following: E. Hinkley, T. Zajkowski, and T. Bobbe. Without their
foresight, vision and drive this project could not be undertaken.

# References {#references .unnumbered}

^1^Ambrosia, V.G., S. S. Wegener, D. V. Sullivan, S. W. Buechel, S. E.
Dunagan, J. A. Brass, J. Stoneburner, S.M. Schoenung,, "Demonstrating
UAV-Acquired Real-Time Thermal Data Over Fires*,"* *Photogrammetric
Engineering and Remote Sensing,* Vol. 69, No. 4, April 2003, pp.
391-402*.*

*^2^Dunagan, S.E., D.V. Sullivan, R.E. Slye, B.M. Lobitz, E. Hinkley and
S. Herwitz, "*A Multi-Sensor Imaging Payload for Mission-Adaptive Remote
Sensing Applications*," AIAA Infotech@Aerospace, Advancing Contemporary
Aerospace Technologies and Their Integration Conference, Meeting Papers
on Disc (CD - ROM), AIAA, Arlington, VA, 2005.*

^3^GA-ASI ALTAIR Experimenter's Handbook, San Diego, CA, 2001.

^4^http://www.ipo.noaa.gov/Technology/viirs_summary.html

^5^D'Ortenzio, M., Enomoto F., and Johan S., \"Collaborative Decision
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[^1]: Senior Research Scientist, Science and Environmental Policy
    Institute, CSUMB / NASA-Ames Research Center, MS 242-4, Moffett
    Field, CA, 94035-1000. AIAA Member.

[^2]: Senior Scientist, Longitude 122 West, Inc., 1010 Doyle St., Suite
    10, Menlo Park, CA. AIAA Member.

[^3]: Senior Scientist, Bay Area Environmental Research Institute
    (BAERI), NASA Ames Research Center, MS 245-5, Moffett Field, CA
    94035-1000. AIAA Member.

[^4]: Aerospace Engineer, NASA-Ames Research Center, MS 269-1, Moffett
    Field, CA 94035-1000. AIAA Member.