Engineering periodical profiles emerging field of drone journalism

The Technograph, a student-run publication at the University of Illinois and one of the oldest engineering periodicals in the world, profiled drone journalism in its 128th volume (spring 2013). Includes an interview with Matt Waite, journalism professor and head of Nebraska's Drone Journalism Lab:

Thanks to modern news media conditioning, whenever one hears the word “drone,” one invariably associates the word with military-operated wraiths of the night, waging covert warfare against terrorist groups. However, not all drones are weapons of war. The emerging field of drone journalism aims to use remote-controlled and autonomous robots to aid journalists in collecting information and in reporting the news...

The main advantage of using drones, for Schroyer, is “a more evidence-based approach to journalism. Getting beyond interviews and hearsay and actually getting to some data and evidence that journalists can use.”

Read the story on Technograph's website.

World's most popular consumer drone gains autonomous flight

Since it was introduced in 2010, the AR.Drone has been a success among hobbyists, hackers, engineering students, drone journalists, activists, and aspiring UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) operators. Produced by the French wireless products manufacturer Parrot, this camera-enabled quadrotor can be controlled over WiFi via iOS or Android-enabled phones and tablets.

This has been the go-to item for many news organizations trying to understand the new world of UAS without a tremendous investment. The Sydney Herald recently used one to help bring context to their story about privacy concerns amidst the proliferation of "drones."

A news crew in Florida also tried using an AR.Drone to get a better view of a live event, but they were chased out of the sky by angry bees.

Since launch, it has sold over 300,000 units. That's ten times the number of UAS that the FAA anticipated would by flying in American airspace... by 2020.

A selling point of the RC aircraft from the beginning has been augmented reality dogfights with other AR.Drones, facilitated by on-board image recognition. Parrot recently unveiled another addition to the drone's list of AR abilities -- a GPS receiver.

Building a Wifi Temperature Node for Journalism

Wireless sensor nodes can help monitor conditions the community, in the next state over, or across the globe. These sensors don't have to be complex or expensive to be useful -- even a simple wireless temperature node can be helpful in tracking heat waves, monitoring the heat-island effect in cities, and serving as a warning system for asthma sufferers.

Previously, I've chosen a prototyping platform and 3D printed useful parts to make a sensor node. This post covers planning, assembling, programming, and testing a wireless temperature sensor node for journalism.

Heat island effect and asthma: an argument for temperature nodes for journalists

Meteorologists shouldn’t be the only people in the news ecosystem concerned with temperature. Extreme temperatures can exacerbate food shortages, hurt the economy, affect energy prices, provoke health crises, cancel public events and disrupt public services.

At the moment, Australia is undergoing the worst heat wave it’s ever recorded. Pavement has melted, and gasoline evaporates right out of the fuel pump, making refueling a car a challenge. Fires are burning out of control in coastal regions. People have died.

It’s gotten so hot (all together now: how hot is it?) that the Australian weather service has added a new color to its heat map which denotes temperatures above 122 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 50 degrees Celsius, or half the boiling point of water.

This also doesn’t seem like a problem that will disappear in the near future. Climate scientists believe extreme temperatures are only going to be more prevalent. Due to climate change, many parts of the world could experience more extreme high temperatures and fewer extreme low temperatures, with climate models predicting higher maximum temperatures and more heat waves in the future (Easterling et al, 2000).

By some estimates, these heat waves will increase by a factor of 5 to 10 in the next four decades (Barriopedro et al, 2011). Without countermeasures, these high temps could cause “increased adverse health impacts from heat-related mortality, pollution, storm-related fatalities and injuries, and infectious diseases” (Field et all, 2007).

Some might point out that we have a national service that tells us what the temperature is. Election forecasting virtuoso Nate Silver pointed out in his book “The Signal and the Noise” that it’s such a valuable service, in fact, that a multi-billion dollar service industry in weather forecasting has sprung up from the National Weather Service freely sharing its weather data (it should be noted that these services are providing independent forecasts, not simply repackaging NWS data).

In an age where many phones come pre-loaded with weather apps, does it make sense for a publication to have a network of temperature sensors?

Making a sensor node for journalism: picking components and 3D printing useful bits

Open-source microcontrollers can be very handy for journalists: they can fly a data-gathering drone and control a data-gathering sensor node, among other uses. Previously I wrote how sensor nodes could be useful in a journalism investigation. Now it's time to leave the theory behind, and actually prototype one of these sensor nodes.

Nodes for journalists: a primer on bringing sensor data to the reporter

Drones are pretty cool, and could be pretty useful for journalists. They allow journalists to film hard-to-reach spots, such as partially-sunken cruise liners. These unmanned systems also can be used to collect geospatial data and photomaps, both of which can come in handy for a journalism investigation.

As I’ve written before, though, drones simply are remotely piloted aircraft (or watercraft). By themselves, they are not very useful tools. What actually makes them useful is that they are mobile platforms for sensors, which can collect data to guide reportage. Cameras are just one of a multitude of sensors that drones can carry into the sky.

What kind of additional sensors could you use on a drone? It’s probably easier to ask what exactly you want to measure in the environment, and then find a sensor to fit the application.

Droneveillance, and blogging for the International Symposium on Technology and Society

Lately I've found myself blogging for the International Symposium on Technology and Society, or ISTAS. It's an annual conference sponsored by IEEE (the Institute of Electric and Electronic Engineers), which as its name suggests, focuses on the impact that evolving technologies have on everyday life. This year's conference will pay special consideration to the future of the smart infrastructure and surveillance:

In a world of smart things like smart lights, smart toilets, smart grids, smart meters, smart roads, and the like, what happens when you have "smart people" (i.e. put sensors on people)? What do we make of the growing numbers of businesses like department stores and restaurants that prohibit cameras, yet display QR codes that require cameras to read and understand?

It's not just about surveillance, either. Surveillance has a specific meaning, which refers to observing people or objects from an elevated position.That means surveillance is conducted by law enforcements and governments. Sousveillance, on the other hand, means observing or recording from below. When average citizens, as opposed to the government, do the recording, that's sousveillance.

How about droneveillance? Unlike fixed cameras, drones are highly mobile platforms for a variety of remote sensing devices. They're agile, relatively silent (depending on the altitude), and can even fly indoors. They've gotten especially smart at negotiating obstacles and mapping unfamiliar terrain, and they can work as a team to provide comprehensive monitoring.