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  • [music]

  • A flying robot drops a trail of balls filled with a liquid

  • that starts on fire.

  • It looks like a game, but it has a serious purpose.

  • The problem that we're trying to address with this is

  • how do you start controlled fires for land management

  • in safe and effective ways.

  • Prescribed burning is a conservation tool that keeps the great plains healthy,

  • protecting it from species that invade and choke off the land for other uses.

  • In the absence of fire, what we've see are a lot of invasions

  • of Eastern red cedar and as result we see major changes

  • with livestock production potential in these landscapes,

  • grassland birds and we've recently seen in the southern great plains

  • some endangered species that are listed.

  • Currently controlled fires are started by hand or using

  • helicopters that drop the delayed ignition balls,

  • methods that can be dangerous and costly.

  • University of Nebraska-Lincoln scientists are collaborating on a solution.

  • We realized that there was this great opportunity to work

  • together and by tailoring some of these technologies to

  • this particular problem domain.

  • In this case it turned out that this aerial robot is a really good platform

  • for this type of problem.

  • While the robot is in flight, the cargo feeds balls into

  • a chute. Each ball is rotated and injected with alcohol

  • to start a chemical reaction before being dropped to the ground.

  • Seconds later, the ball ignites.

  • The balls can be dropped in a straight line, or a precise pattern.

  • The robot was developed with experience learned in the

  • Nebraska Intelligent Mobile Unmanned Systems Lab.

  • Other robotics software projects provided a solid foundation.

  • We have been working with these types of vehicles, these aerial robots for a while

  • so we've been able to leverage a lot our existing systems.

  • Nebraska's expertise in this area also benefits students.

  • It's fun to actually see a design go from concept to the computer to

  • then actually being built in real life and now doing physical test

  • and seeing it validated, that's a lot of fun.

  • I think it went very well and I'm very excited for our next revision.

  • Because I think we learned a lot today.

  • In the future, aerial robots could help local and national agencies protect forests and rangeland.

  • The devices could also provide a cost effective option

  • for an individual property owner.

  • Because it's downscaled, there's going to be more opportunities

  • to link that to what landowners are doing on their own individual properties.

  • Whereas they would have no potential to do say helicopter based ignitions.

  • Looks like if we were out doing a prescribed fire right now,

  • it would have been a successful ignition.

  • More revisions are needed, but Nebraska researchers hope the innovation will catch fire as

  • an alternative for range management.

  • [music]

[music]

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