Infrared Sensor on Unmanned Aircraft Transmits Time-Critical Wildfire Data

Since 2006, NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center (DFRC) and Ames Research Center have been perfecting and demonstrating a new capability for geolocation of wildfires and the real-time delivery of data to firefighters. Managed for the Western States Fire Mission, the Ames-developed Autonomous Modular Scanner (AMS), mounted beneath a wing of DFRC’s MQ-9 Ikhana remotely piloted aircraft, contains an infrared sensor capable of discriminating temperatures within 0.5 °F (≈ 0.3 °C), up to 1,000 °F (≈ 540 °C).