Unmanned Aerial Vehicles student programme launched for prevention and protection of the environment
Engineering students from the University of Southampton will develop drones that can help protect the environment in a new research programme funded by a philanthropic technology entrepreneur.
The new Turner-Kirk UAV Research Support Programme will fund three groups of fourth-year students to focus on ways to improve the efficiency and extend the battery life of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).
The new scheme follows a £15,000 donation from Southampton alumnus Dr Ewan Kirk.
The solutions will enable greater longer-range monitoring, tracking and evaluation of the impact of environmental degradation, which is currently prohibitively expensive to deploy on a widespread scale.
The student team will also undertake a field trip to Guatemala next year to monitor a live volcano using the new technology in collaboration with the University of Bristol.