Abstract
Extreme environments like active volcanoes exhibit many difficulties in being studied by in situ techniques. For example, during eruptions, summit areas are very hard to be accessed because of logistics problems and/or volcanic hazards. The use of remote sensing techniques in the last 20 years by satellite or airborne platforms has proven their capabilities in mapping and monitoring the evolution of volcanic activity. This approach has become increasingly important, as much interest is actually focused on understanding precursory signals to volcanic eruptions. In this work we verify the use of cutting-edge technology like unmanned flying system thermally equipped for volcanic applications. We present the results of a flight test performed by INGV in collaboration with the University of Bologna (Aerospace Division) by using a multi-rotor aircraft in a hexacopter configuration. The experiment was realized in radio controlled mode to overcome many regulation problems which, especially in Italy, limit the use of this system in autonomous mode. The overall goal was not only qualitative but also quantitative oriented. The system flew above an Italian mud volcano, named Le Salinelle, located on the lower South West flank of Mt. Etna volcano, which was chosen as representative site, providing not only a discrimination between hot and cold areas, but also the corresponding temperature values. The in-flight measurements have been cross-validated with contemporaneous in-situ acquisition of thermal data and from independent measurements of mud/water temperature.
Highlights
Volcanic activities are globally important phenomena affecting both environment and human life
In this paper we describe a field experiment performed in June 2012 by flying a thermal camera-equiped hexacopter over the Salinelle mud volcano (Sicily, Italy)
In order to obtain a quantitative mapping of the Salinelle volcano, a Forward Looking InfraRed (FLIR) thermal camera was used
Summary
Volcanic activities are globally important phenomena affecting both environment and human life. Surface temperature anomalies have been remotely investigated, but their use has been limited so far by the poor spatialtemporal resolution of satellite systems or by the expensive costs of dedicated airborne measurements These volcanic phenomena rarely maintain a stable level of activity in time and this is the reason why reliable forecasts should be made by well-organized volcano observatories which operate at a local scale. Air-borne surveys provide information crucial to get an overall view of the eruptive scenarios, especially in the case of wide active areas such as lava flow fields, crater fumaroles and hydrothermal zones [18] These surveys provide information to be used for thermal imaging-derived parameters such as heat budgets and effusion rates [13,17,19]. The relevant result is that we realized qualitative hot-cold map of the mud volcano, and associated the temperature values
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