UAV - I det sivile samfunns tjeneste III

Unmanned Aircraft to Take Over Shark Watch in Australia

Posted on July 31, 2013 by The Editor

Unmanned aircraft could soon be seen in the skies above suburbs like Coogee, in an effort to keep the beaches safe from sharks during Sydney’s summer months.

Councillor Ted Seng’s motion at last week’s Randwick Council meeting, that Randwick Council investigate the feasibility of using unmanned aircraft to carry out shark patrols on the beaches, was carried.

“The last few years the cost of a UAS has come right down and they’ve been doing some wonderful things with them,” he said.

“The cost itself is not much but the monitoring of it will be expensive and so that’s why I suggested approaching the other coastal councils and we could all share the cost. It’s more than just sharks though and it’s about what other uses we could have for UAS, too.

“It’s just such a sophisticated technology and has been proven so successful in so many emergency situations.”

Westpac Life Saver Chief executive officer Stephen Leahy at the Westpac Life Saver Helicopter Base in La Perouse said the rescue service had been looking at the possibility of employing UAS over the past 18 months but the eastern beaches coastline threw up some definite challenges.

Mr Leahy said that the proximity to Sydney Airport and existing flight corridors across the eastern suburb’s beaches were hurdles that anyone looking at using UAS.

“UAS also don’t have communication capacities, so there’s a possibility of it colliding into one of our aircraft too for example,” he said.

“The other hurdle is that theUAS must be flown by a qualified pilot, so since it’s not a core business for council it would have to be something they did in conjunction with surf lifesaving and us.”

Unmanned aircraft were zooming around Shark Bay, WA in Australia’s first trial to see whether these military style UAS can help manage and conserve marine mammals. The first trial of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) focused on dugongs.

Photo: The Westpac rescue helicopter on shark duty at Coogee beach – Erin Byrne/NewsLocal