Flying High - Space Apps Challenge

Flying High| Spot That Fire V3.0

Awards & Nominations

Flying High has received the following awards and nominations. Way to go!

Global Nominee

Spot That Fire V3.0

Recent wildfires worldwide have demonstrated the importance of rapid wildfire detection, mitigation, and community impact assessment analysis. Your challenge is to develop and/or augment an existing application to detect, predict, and assess the economic impacts from actual or potential wildfires by leveraging high-frequency data from a new generation of geostationary satellites, data from polar-orbiting environmental satellites, and other open-source datasets.

FPA Proyect (Fire Prediction App)

Summary

FPA is based on the prevention and prediction of forest fires using free satellite data in order to help combat the damage they cause from a socio-environmental location. We rely on the use of the Rothermel equation to establish the risk of a fire through meteorological variables and with this model determine the priority of each focus. To predict future fires we propose the superposition of this important mathematical model complemented with free use satellite images. These data will be processed by the app and if necessary we will get the help of a drone in real time to facilitate the tasks of firefighters.

How We Addressed This Challenge

Why did we choose this project?

As a team we made the decision together to choose this challenge since at present both in our country and worldwide there have been great economic, social and environmental losses due to this problem. As an example we can mention the cases in which large fires affected countries like Australia in what happened in May this year or also as the great problem that Argentina faces with the fires in Cordoba and the past in Santa Fe. We can also mention the catastrophic case that occurred in the Amazon last year, affecting the so-called lung of the world for its large areas and varieties of flora and fauna, leaving irreversible damage to our planet.

How We Developed This Project

As future aerospace engineers we believe that the use of spatial data is fundamental to have a broad vision from both an ecological and social point of view. We are convinced that technology and engineering are key tools for the future of our society and our planet, and we know that if drastic decisions are not taken in the following decades we would face irreversible problems that would end up affecting future generations in an irreversible way. We believe that it is fundamental to contribute from our small place as students to help our country and society from a technological aspect.

Why did the idea of creating this app come up?

The idea to carry out this project arose due to recent events in the region of Cordoba in our country. It challenges us because when making a socioeconomic analysis caused by this catastrophe the economic impact is reflected, since many agricultural and cattle producers lose all their raw material putting at risk their sources of income and making an important economic stand by in the area of production as well as in the social aspect having registered in many cases the great losses of houses and personal belongings of the victims, as well as the health problems that are registered by the inhalation of great amounts of smoke.

From Flying High Team we seek to reduce the economic and social impact generated by these major disasters and we believe that spatial data and the use of software are crucial to combat this problem. To be able to predict in an approximate way these events is vital for the control of these catastrophes, that is why we seek to combat this problem based on the mathematical model of Rothermel which allows us to determine the degree of danger and risk of a fire using meteorological and physical data.

We created a simplified mathematical estimate based on Rothermel, which allows us to designate a coefficient with a numerical value which will help determine how dangerous the situation is in real time in the affected area. In other words, we will be able to control possible fire sources before they happen, whether they are caused intentionally or by natural causes, using free satellite data and images obtained from open data from the AE.

With the help of this satellite data provided by the AE and in addition to the mathematical model of Rothermel we designed a mobile app for firefighters and relevant authorities, which will provide the necessary data to optimize the tasks of fire extinction taking into account the numerical coefficient of danger and thus diagram a more effective and optimal plan to combat these dangerous sources.

As a complement to this software, we design a flying unmanned vehicle suitable for working in these adverse conditions, which is available to firefighters to facilitate the action in mitigating the fire or to perform inspection tasks in possible affected areas. This would be applied at a more punctual scale, with real time images of the area and with the capacity to detect the highest temperature focuses through a high definition camera with the possibility of using an IR sensor and providing general images or videos from a temperature point of view.

In summary, we can say that this project consists of three fundamental parts:

Satellite data and the mathematical model, which allow us to determine risk predictions or priority of action.
A software that allows to process the data obtained in the previous section, that is intuitive for the users. It would be very useful at all times, prior to the detection of fire sources or during the same action to ensure the optimization and organization of tasks of firefighters and thus have greater effectiveness in the work, without putting the staff at risk.
A support drone designed to complement and monitor tasks in real time. Giving an aerial view of the area and detecting possible dangers for workers, this vehicle will provide greater security for both staff and people and wildlife that are adjacent to the area.

Why do we think our project is important?

From FPA Team we believe it is very important to explain the scientific foundations that accompany our project. We want this to have a great impact on society, both in terms of awareness for the prevention of future fires and also, if these happen, to have all the possible tools to carry out the tasks safely and effectively. That's why we want FPA to be not only a dream that seemed good, but at the same time impossible, but ideal, useful and with everything to take action. We believe this requires two things:

That it be economically profitable
That it is possible to carry it out in terms of scientific foundations.

For more information, the mathematical basics used can be found on the team board.

How We Used Space Agency Data in This Project

The data we will use to map the regions at risk are obtained through IR wavelengths for the detection of high temperatures and future fire sources. These data are acquired through free satellite images from NASA and CONAE and will be superimposed with information on temperature, humidity and wind variables in order to achieve greater effectiveness in both fire prediction and extinction. We will only need to find the satellite data of the region to be applied and superimpose it with the App to make it useful in each area.

To summarize, the concept of FPA is to take advantage of meteorological data that influence proportionally to the generation of fires and dump them in a user-friendly software.

On the other hand, we add that we will be based on the use of the MUDI projects of NASA and SAC-D Aquarius of CONAE. The design of MUDI is based on an instrument called MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) which we will explain in detail in the teamboard. From the SAC-D Aquarius system we will use NIRST (New Infrared Sensor Technology) instruments and the MWR microwave radiometer for meteorological uses. As a complement, we also use the data provided by the G-PORTAL on natural disasters and temperatures of the earth's surface.

From the database provided by NASA we use for this project the already mentioned satellites with their respective instruments NIRST, MODIS, MWR and we also use the data that G-Portal provides of temperatures and natural disasters. The data obtained thanks to these devices were processed to feed the mobile application with basic information. In addition, in the scaling of the project we will be able to use data from other NASA satellites in each corresponding region.

To have more information about the satellite instruments you can visit the data and resources shortcuts

How do we design this application?

From our team we seek to design an application for the daily use of firefighters and authorities belonging to rural areas. This application is designed to superimpose temperature, humidity and wind data.

Obtaining this data for each rural area the app calculates and assigns a numerical value based on the Rothermel index. This coefficient that assigns us the application, gives us the pattern of the danger and risk of a fire focus, and with this same establish an order of priorities to each of the focuses detected.

Also, knowing the data from the overlap of the three meteorological variables already mentioned, we can predict future fire focuses and with another mathematical coefficient assign a numerical value to these future focuses. This could help us to prevent possible areas of unintentional fires or those prone to be so.

Another utility that FPA would have is to simulate a fire in a certain place, in order to predict the possible damage that these could generate both from the economic and social fields. With this option, it will be possible to plan future combat or prevention tasks in a more precise way.