People often joke about how unreliable weather prediction can be. A forecast may call for blizzard like conditions and piles of snow, sending people into a frenzy to get the the store to be prepared for being stuck indoors for some time. Then the following morning they wake to an uneventful dusting of snow on the ground. The reason why this happens is that to be able to make weather predictions is much like being a fortune teller, though with a lot of mathematical and scientific data backing the prediction. Powerful computers and data collection systems that are extremely expensive are needed to make weather predictions. Of course it is helpful to know if it will be a nice day, rainy, cold, hot, or snowy to prepare for your day. But where these predictions become vital is in the event of extreme weather situations like earthquakes and tsunamis.

There is nothing that can be done to prevent these natural disasters, all we can do is prepare for them. According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction preparedness is “the knowledge and capacities developed by government, professional response and recovery organizations, communities and individuals to effectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from, the impacts of likely, imminent or current hazard events or conditions.” Unfortunately, people are more often than not unprepared for such situations because the prediction data can be unreliable.

Dr. Trung Duong is a researcher from Queen’s University Belfast of Northern Ireland in the Institute of Electronics, Communications and Information Technology. Originally from Vietnam, Dr. Duong has had first hand experience with extreme weather conditions. Between 2005 and 2014 Vietnam was hit by close to 100 natural disasters. Each year these storms claimed around 10,000 lives and destroyed half a million homes. The weather prediction systems in place for Vietnam are partly to blame for some of the devastation these storms cause. As Dr. Duong explains, “Currently warning systems for natural disasters are very expensive, not always effective and are often easily damaged. In Vietnam, monitoring stations are placed alongside the river which cover a small area. 25 of these stations would take around six months to build and cost nearly $500,000. They only last four years but if extreme weather strikes, they are almost always damaged as they are so close to the water.” This is why Dr. Duong decided to come up with a system that would be accurate, inexpensive, and help to prepare people for life threatening inclement weather.

Rather than using expensive, fragile ground stations to collect data, Dr. Duong proposed using drones that can fly over large areas to collect the data to better the prediction models. His project was funded by the Newtown Fund as the winner of their annual $1 million prize for research and development in the support of social welfare and economic development. As reported by Queen’s University, the drone built by Dr. Duong is an “integrated heterogeneous wireless system (IHWS), which is robust in disaster scenarios, coping with issues such as physical destruction of telecommunication networks, lack of power supply and network congestion.” The report goes on to state that the system “provides early warning of natural disasters by detecting water level, vibration and wind. In cities, the IWHS can identify increases in dust, temperature, noise and carbon dioxide levels.”

The biggest issue for Dr. Duong and his team was that typical drones have a battery life that is too short to accurately gather data for weather models. “The battery life of a drone often does not last long and those that can last up to 30 minutes are very expensive,” he said. “Our challenge was to create an inexpensive wireless system employed drones that could be flown over a large surface area for a longer period of time but also with extra capacity in providing early warnings and wireless connectivity in the aftermath of disaster.”

Once disasters strike, being able to communicate with people is critical. But as Dr. Duong pointed out, “An added complication is that when a natural disaster hits, people in the affected communities find it very difficult to communicate with emergency services and their families as phone signal and WiFi is often disrupted due to the weather and also because so many people are using the system at one time.” The drone system that he has built will not only collect data for preparedness, but serve as a WiFi provider. Emergency workers will be able to communicate with each other to properly address the situation and save lives while civilians can keep in touch with loved ones and have access to critical information.

Under the leadership of the Vietnam Disaster Management Authority (VDMA), Dr. Duong has trained more than 20 staff and students throughout Vietnam to use his drone model for disaster prediction and preparedness. Deputy Director of Science Technology and International Cooperation for the VDMA, Dr. Le Quang Tuan said, “Dr. Duong’s research will have a very positive impact for the people of Vietnam when they face difficult and extreme weather. As well as monitoring extreme weather conditions, Dr. Duong’s system will allow us to communicate with emergency services and each other when we are faced with an emergency situation.” He went on to say, “Working together we can achieve so much more and this will help us to create a safer society for all of our citizens.” This is exactly what Dr. Duong envisioned when he set out to create this drone system, technology that can provide better weather prediction models and preparedness for communities worldwide. He said, “The research could make a real difference to people living in areas exposed to extreme weather and it will certainly make the work of emergency services much easier.”

Previous Drone News: