Environmental Applications of Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems in Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Reconnaissance and Surveillance

Integrating chemical sensors into small, unmanned aircraft systems can expand their capabilities and make them suitable for a variety of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance operations.

Air Force Institute of Technology, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio

Environmental engineering is the study of a dynamic relationship between humans and the environment - how humans impact the environment and how the environment affects humans. Like many other disciplines, environmental engineering has a lot to gain and share from exploring the use of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS).

UAS provide a very interesting, and often sophisticated, platform to help scientists, engineers, and operators understand or at least navigate this relationship between man and the environment. The Department of Defense (DOD) has several mission sets that align with the use of UAS. Most of these missions fall within intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR). The Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear (CBRN) community falls within this ISR framework. However, there is limited research related to where these three focus areas - environmental engineering, UAS and CBRN reconnaissance and surveillance (R&S) - converge.