Why UPEI has the largest drone fleet for a Canadian university

Every summer, a team of P.E.I. scientists goes out on the road, stops at remote locations near the Island's shoreline or by some farm field, unloads thousands of dollars' worth of equipment and gets ready for takeoff.

"Basically if the weather is good in the flying season, which is like spring through the fall, we're basically out every day," said Andy MacDonald, who works with the University of Prince Edward Island's climate lab.

He joined the lab when he was pursuing a master's degree in environmental sciences.

"You get out there, you kind of set everything up, and then you're kind of there for the day, or like half a day, flying.... Then you kind of pack up and move to the next one."

MacDonald, one of the climate lab's two full-time drone pilots, is responsible for helping manage what UPEI says is the largest drone fleet for a Canadian post-secondary institution.

"When I was doing my undergrad [in chemistry], I never would have even considered the possibility of doing something like this," he said. "Just sort of happened."

Twenty-nine drones are used for everything from monitoring farmland to figure out which areas produce higher yields, to surveying how climate change affects coastal erosion rates.

"We've been in this business for over six years now, and we're one of the first research groups in the world to undertake this type of activity," said Adam Fenech, the director of the climate lab and the man who spearheaded such initiatives.

"These applications are not happening solely here on Prince Edward Island. But we certainly have been ... early to the game."

Climate change as viewed from above

The coastal erosion monitoring initiative is Fenech's most high-profile research project in P.E.I., and the reason why the fleet exists in the first place.

Back in 2016 when his team started collecting the data, all its measures were taken on the ground.

"We had put in a bunch of measuring pins all around the Island to give us sort of like an early warning system to see [year to year] the distance between the pins and the coastline ... but we soon found out that those pins were sort of not enough," Fenech said.

"With the drones, we can fly the full run of the beach. Sometimes that's you know, a couple of kilometres long. And then we can use that imagery year to year to determine how much erosion is occurring."

Since their implementation of drones for that project, the team has branched out. Climate lab drones are now doing things such as examining the damage wind turbines on the coastline receive from salt particles in the air.

The drones are also an asset for the agricultural sector, helping determine which farmland areas perform well, or measuring how the land slopes so farmers can improve their water management.

"The drones can provide a very precise idea of any damages that might occur from storm activity, or even just from regular climate that can be provided to agricultural insurance companies," Fenech said.

High-tech

Different models are used for different tasks, from small "workhorse" drones to large quadcopters. Drones could cost up to $40,000, with some carrying imaging equipment worth upwards of $200,000.

For example, the Phoenix Terrahawk CW-30 — which at a four-metre wingspan is possibly the largest drone of its type in Canada — is equipped with a LIDAR laser scanning sensor.

You don't want these things crashing into cars and causing problems or falling and hitting somebody in the head.— Adam Fenech, UPEI

"It uses blades to vertically take off, and then it ignites a fuel engine and flies like a regular fixed-wing plane," Fenech said.

"[The sensor] gives us very precise information with an accuracy of less than two centimetres so that we can build these sort of 3D visualization environments that we use to help communities understand the impacts of climate change."

In 2021, the team flew the drones in 283 missions. That translates to 168 hours, almost seven days, up in the air.

"Since we were lucky to have students last year, we were broken up into two teams for half of the season," MacDonald said. "I think this year, it's going to be even busier."

While there are two full-time pilots, they're not the only ones able to fly the machines. In fact, UPEI's school of climate change and adaptation students earn a basic piloting license as part of their curriculum.

Safety first

Lee Dodson is vice-president of Volatis Aerospace, and runs the Skygate drone flight school out of Slemon Park, where students go to train for their advanced licence. 

He said it usually takes about 40 hours of study plus a couple of weeks of practice before students can take the required tests to become a Transport Canada-certified pilot.

I'm very excited of what the potential will be, because it gives us really precise information.— Adam Fenech, UPEI

"The final part of the assessment is for them to come here, spend a day being trained on the emergency and safety procedures and the basic operational skills for flying a drone," he said.

"We spend the whole day here flying drones and going through the paperwork and the processes you need to do to fly drones legally here. And once you've completed that, we are then in a position to conduct what's called a flight review."

Once students get the advance licence, Skygate also offers them seminars on how to use some of the more specialized tech, such as imaging equipment.

"This training is primarily designed for the safety of drone flying, because you don't want these things crashing into cars and causing problems or falling and hitting somebody in the head," Fenech said.

"The rules and regulations and the restrictions become more and more [strict] as the size of your drone increases. So there's a huge investment that's been put into all of our drone pilots into getting their drone licences."

While piloting the drones is a serious business, Fenech, who knows how to fly the machines as well, admits he still feels giddy whenever he sees them fly off.

"I still do a little bit of cheering inside, because not only are you kind of playing with toys, but these toys are helping us understand the changing environment here," he said.

"I'm very excited of what the potential will be, because it gives us really precise information.... We have six years of data now. It's a very important data set."