Drone relay helps researchers reach new heights

BEIJING－Unmanned aerial vehicles are poised to take off as powerful tools for scientific research on the "roof of the world."

Chinese scientists have used a drone-enabled internet of things relay system to achieve real-time environmental monitoring in remote areas where mobile networks are insufficient.

The system was developed by the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Sciences. It mainly consists of drone-based relay equipment for data collection and IoT terminals on the ground, including devices for environmental monitoring and data transmission.

Scientists used the drones as mobile relays to grab real-time data from monitoring devices deployed in hard-to-reach areas. After that, they flew the drones to areas with broader network coverage and forwarded the data to scientific data centers, lead researcher Li Xin said on Thursday.

According to an online article published by the IEEE Internet of Things journal, scientists have carried out several experimental flights in Northwest China's Gansu province, which showed the high feasibility of the system.

Due to the remote and harsh environment, data sampling on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has been infrequent for a long time. Chinese scientists have stepped up efforts in the area in recent years, but current equipment and poor network coverage are unable to meet the growing research demand.

The drone-enabled IoT relay system can make up for the network deficiency and will help scientists achieve environmental monitoring on the plateau faster and easier than before, according to researchers.

Co-author Zhang Minghu says the research team is exploring ways to apply the system to wildlife monitoring.

"Using the drone system to replace the manual observation of wildlife will be much safer, especially with large animals," Zhang says.