UgCS Drone Fleet Software Helps Count Penguin Chicks

A close up image of chicks from the ground taken just a few days before the survey (c) Annie Schmidt/Point Blue

What one drone can do, multiple drones can do faster.  Scientists have been able to use multiple UAVs, managed by UgCS drone fleet software from SPH Engineering, to survey one of the largest Adélie penguin colonies in the world in under 3 hours.

UgCS drone fleet software has been used for everything from drone light shows to geospatial data applications.  Scientists from Stanford University, Point Blue Conservation Science and Conservation Metrics were able to use the UgCS software to develop a system to autonomously survey a huge colony of Adélie penguins in the Antarctic.  Using multiple drones, the project which would have taken 3 days was completed in a fraction of the time.  “Thousands of high-resolution images were taken on each survey,” says the press release.  These images will be used with an AI model (Conservation Metrics) currently under…