5.13. Small Remote-Controlled Aircraft
Several parties have suggested remote controlled aircraft to provide more economical solutions for response personnel [295–297]. In fact, remote controlled aircraft have been used by a number of parties for monitoring a variety of pollutants since the 1970s [297].
Belgium employs a UAV of the B-Hunter class to routinely monitor its portion of the North Sea [296]. This is a large UAV which has visible and IR camera systems aboard. The unit has a 10-h endurance over the targets.
A variety of commercial platforms, currently mostly drones, are now available which can provide carriage for small sensors such as visible and IR cameras [298]. Further, automatic navigation technology has now made these units, especially ...
Get Oil Spill Science and Technology, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
