Technologies
Multi-Scale Approach
UAV Multi-Sensing System
To complement satellite and airborne observations, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) provide flexible, high-resolution monitoring at the site scale. UAV platforms enable detailed mapping of methane emissions and surface conditions across landfill sites.
Our system leverages a range of UAV platforms equipped with multi-sensor capabilities for environmental monitoring, including systems comparable to the DJI Matrice 300 (M300) and Aurelia X8.
The UAV payload includes:
Thermal infrared sensors (DJI Zenmuse XT)
Used to detect temperature anomalies associated with landfill gas migration and surface heat signatures. The UAV platform is equipped with the DJI Zenmuse XT thermal camera, which provides high-resolution thermal imagery of the landfill surface. These observations allow the identification of localized hotspots and thermal gradients, which may indicate methane migration pathways, variations in landfill cover performance, or differences in subsurface gas transport processes.
Multispectral sensors (MicaSense RedEdge-MX)
Used to measure vegetation indices (e.g., NDVI) and surface characteristics that may indicate methane oxidation zones or variations in landfill cover conditions. The multispectral imagery provides multiple spectral bands including RGB, near-infrared (NIR), and red-edge, enabling the derivation of vegetation indices and surface reflectance features. In addition, photogrammetry processing of UAV imagery generates a digital surface model (DSM), which captures detailed terrain and surface elevation information for further analysis of landfill morphology and gas migration pathways.
By integrating thermal, multispectral, and optical imagery, UAV observations provide centimeter-scale spatial resolution, enabling detailed analysis of methane emission hotspots, landfill cover conditions, and terrain features.
These high-resolution datasets also support machine learning models for methane prediction and emission mapping, bridging the gap between ground measurements and larger-scale satellite observations.
