Digging – New Drone Ability

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

While drones are primarily known for what they can do in the sky, like aerial photography or gathering intelligence, a new project out of University of Nebraska–Lincoln (UNL) takes things in a different direction: digging holes.
Built by UNL’s NIMBUS Lab, the quadcopter is equipped with a big drill that, once the drone has landed, can be used to burrow into the dirt, sand, or clay beneath it, primarily for scientific purposes.

However, a digging drone isn’t as easy as just strapping a drill to the device. Drones already tend to have short battery lives, with top-shelf drones like the DJI Mavic Pro Platinum topping out at 30 minutes. Adding a giant drill that is both heavy in flight and requires energy of its own while in use only makes the problem worse.
“Battery powered drones have very short flight times, especially when flying with a heavy load, which ours have due to their digging apparatus and sensor system,” NIMBUS codirector Carrick Detweiler, told popularmechanics.com. The solution? More drones.
“We need to hitch a ride on another vehicle,” he said. After flying with another drone, it parachutes in. “This allows it to save energy for return trips. In the video we used a much larger gas powered UAS with multiple hours of flight time, but our same system could be deployed from manned aircraft or other systems”.
While the drone can perform its drilling and parachuting autonomously, it needs the location to be manually selected. As far as uses, Detweiler imagines scientific research in areas with moist soil. Federal agencies like the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) conduct such tests to “manage shellfish stocks, plan dredging and waste disposal, and construct stable roads, bridges, docks, and dams,” among other purposes. But as crucial as infrastructure projects, waste disposal, and shellfish are, a drone like the NIMBUS driller could also find military uses. NIMBUS is funded partially by both the USDA and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, which is actively researching UAV systems, as well as new ways to power them.