UAV: A multidisciplinary tool to access extreme enviroments

In the recent years UAV have become an important tool for monitoring and sampling activities in a wide range of applications. Last December an UAV was used for the first time to survey the Lusi volcano (Indonesia). The aim was to take mud and gas samples, aerial photographs, videos and contact temperature measurements. Two different prototypes of remote controlled gas containers were available; in particular one prototype is a real-time telemetry and gas sampling system that returns to the ground station sensors and positioning data and receives and executes commands for the gas sampling. Another important application consists to equip the UAV with hyperspectral cameras and develop appropriate electronics in order to permit the ground station to have also a preview of the hyperspectral images during the survey.