United States Department of Transportation
ROSA P serves as an archival repository of USDOT-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by USDOT or funded partners.
As a repository, ROSA P retains documents in their original published format to ensure public access to scientific information.
i
Evaluating Drone Technology to Identify Ice Changes That Can Cause Ice-Road Hazards
-
2025-02-24
-
By Saiet, Eyal
[PDF-1.63 MB]
Details:
-
Creators:
-
Corporate Creators:
-
Corporate Contributors:
-
Subject/TRT Terms:
-
Resource Type:
-
Geographical Coverage:
-
Corporate Publisher:
-
Abstract:Ice roads in Alaska, a form that connects people during the winter months, enable the importing of critical goods and accessibility to medical services. These ice roads span 100 miles or more and are subject to spatial and temporal safety variability during the shoulder seasons and unseasonal warm events of above-freezing temperatures. In this work, we explore using an unmanned aircraft system (UAS) coupled with a ground penetrating radar (GPR) to inspect ice thickness safety and the presence of sub-snow liquid overflow, common during winter. We compared our UAS-based GPR with ground-based GPR and nearby ice coring. We found the UAS-based GPR biased compared to the ice cores and the ground-based GPR. Nonetheless, when accounting for this bias, the UAS-based GPR had an RMSE of 5 cm for an ice thickness of 20 to 60 cm. More work is needed to understand the root cause of the UAS-based GPR for measuring ice thickness. The UAS-based GPR also effectively mapped sub-snow liquid overflow by measuring the radar return amplitude, which is particularly strong when reflecting between the snow and water layers. Coupling UAS and GPR technology has great promise in conducting ice river safety assessments from a safe location. Still, more work must be done to understand the data’s bias.
-
Format:
-
Funding:
-
Collection(s):
-
Main Document Checksum:
-
Download URL:
-
File Type:
