Thermal images captured by a drone helped to identify the ruins obscured by vegetation and buried in eroded sandstone of the “Blue J”, an 1,000-year-old village in northwestern New Mexico. It contains nearly 60 ancestral Puebloan houses only partially studied through excavations. The obtained information was very useful to expand the research.
This is not an isolated example of the use of drones for scientific goals and such equipment is at the same time appropriate for research and affordable. Scientists want drones to be used to investigate areas uncovered yet by humans and the perspective to identify other unexpected applications exists. Apparently, the ideal tool was created , it exists and it’s the moment to be used. However, limitations are imposed by the regulations for UAVs. The US Federal Aviation Administration is doing research to determine how UAVs could be safely introduced to U.S. skies. And for the moment is illegal to fly commercial drones until they write those rules.
