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The public can expect additional vehicles and personnel to be present at various locations near Coal Bank Pass along U.S. 550. Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS or drones) will be launched from the helipad and personnel will conduct various ground data collection operations in remote areas east of U.S. 550 to validate data obtained using airborne platforms.
The study will focus on aerial monitoring of snow depth and snowpack formations to assist in identifying avalanche-prone areas that intersect Colorado Department of Transportation assets such as roads and engineered structures. It is a collaborative project between the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Southern California, Drone Amplified and CDOT.
Historically, avalanche risk has been assessed using (1) traditional snow pit and probe data (manually collected in the field), (2) distributed ground-based snow and weather stations (e.g., SNOTEL), and (3) snow and weather model results.
The safety and spatial distribution of data collected in avalanche-prone areas can be significantly improved by deploying non-contact sensors such as sUAS-based broadband, software-defined (SD) ground-penetrating radar (GPR).
Similar work is being conducted at Berthoud Pass in 2023 and Cameron Pass in 2020; however, this study will deploy a new SD GPR antenna design.
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