Program Goal
The goal of the program is to create a UAV-based ecological support complex for the urban environment. The ecological complex will be created within the project; this complex should be capable of semi-automatically detecting air (NO2, CO, NH3, CO2, VOCs, PM2.5, PM10), water (optically active components (OAC) and garbage) pollution, noise, assessing the level of traffic, identifying places of increased heat energy consumption and mapping the obtained data. The monitoring system will be implemented on the basis of a UAV equipped with a set of photochemical, optical, acoustic sensors and an infrared camera to monitor the primary sources of pollution present in the urban environment. The data processing system will provide solution of tasks of recognition, classification and mapping of detected pollution, noise, traffic, heat energy consumption.
To achieve the goal, the following tasks should be accomplished
1. Development of software and hardware platform for an unmanned aerial system to perform monitoring tasks within the urban economy (PAPBLKG)
2. Development of a set of on-board mounted systems for solving the tasks of monitoring the urban economy (detection of garbage, air and water pollution).
3. Development of software tools for solving the tasks of classification and recognition of images and data received from the UAV to solve the tasks of mapping of ecological violations of the air and ground environment of the city, heat losses.
4. Development of the system of displaying the received data and the results of their analysis 5. Development of a set of measures for personnel training in the use of the complex, application of the solutions obtained in the process of specialists training.
5. Development of a set of measures for personnel training in the use of the complex, application of the solutions obtained in the process of specialists training.
Relevance
Kazakhstan’s rapidly growing economy, intensive utilization of natural resources, urban growth and lack of control systems generate acute problems related to environmental pollution. Coal combustion, transportation, dust migration, forest fires and some types of industries reduce the quality of atmospheric air. Pollutants affect the climate system, the hydrological cycle and ultimately public health. Dirty air increases the risks of lung cancer, coronary heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and other respiratory infections. Concentrations of the major pollutants (PM10, NO2 and SO2) in many cities in Kazakhstan exceed annual European Union (EU) limit values. Economic damage associated with environmental violations consists of three components: fines imposed on enterprises, payments for emissions into the environment and direct damage to public health. According to the Statistics Committee of the Ministry of National Economy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, the main emissions of pollutants into the atmospheric air were carried out by industrial enterprises, whose share in 2018 amounted to 84.9% of all emissions. According to OECD data, payments for environmental emissions in 2020 in Kazakhstan amounted to 240 million dollars. Increase in health care costs according to the World Bank (year 2013) due to air pollution in 4 selected regions of Kazakhstan, amounted to 1 341 million 600 thousand dollars. These data show the severity of the problem, but only a limited number of studies on pollution in Kazakhstan’s urban agglomerations have been conducted. State regulation in the field of environmental protection provides for random and unscheduled inspections of enterprises; however, according to the methodology of environmental monitoring, the inspection of high-risk enterprises is carried out on average twice a year. As a result, the volume of data collection is insufficient for the full support of the regulatory authorities in the decision-making process. The sector of monitoring of ecologically important urban objects, such as parks, tree plantations, etc., remains underdeveloped; their condition is an integral part of the ecological condition of the megacity. At the same time, international experience shows that the use of unmanned aerial vehicles can significantly reduce the level of pollution due to more frequent monitoring and tracking of pollution sources, development of recreational areas and nature reserves. The possibility of systematic year-round monitoring of the maximum permissible concentrations and emissions of substances by UAVs will allow better control of the activities of enterprises for compliance with environmental legislation and registration of violations in almost real time.
Application of systems of intellectual processing of collected data based on methods of artificial intelligence will make it possible to detect sources of pollution, predict the spread of pollutants, monitor environmentally significant urban facilities and map the results obtained. The calibration of the UAV data with the available satellite information (operational and archived) will allow an immediate shift to relative assessments, without the need to conduct multi-year observations to accumulate relevant archives. All of this will not only reduce costs associated with environmental violations and emission payments, but also improve urban health through better management of the city’s environmental assets, which will ultimately lead to positive economic outcomes through increased labor productivity and reduced disability costs. However, the use of UAVs and artificial intelligence techniques to monitor pollution and the condition of environmental assets in urban areas is still in its early stages of development. Therefore, it is necessary to develop unmanned aerial platforms for application in the city, to develop or modify the methods of processing the collected data according to the conditions of the subject area, to analyze the possibilities of using unmanned platforms in different weather conditions, and to perform pairing of multi-altitude remote sensing data, including orbital platforms. This will make it possible to offer a comprehensive solution for operational control of the environmental situation within the urban agglomeration and adjacent territories.
This program is aimed at creating the basic hardware and software components of such a complex. As a result of its implementation the following results will be obtained: development of prototypes of UAVs and accompanying ground equipment for monitoring in the urban environment; elaboration of methods, algorithms and software for processing data and images from UAVs and Earth satellites to solve the tasks of flight planning, monitoring, mapping in the process of environmental support in the urban agglomeration; preparation of recommendations for the implementation of technological solutions for monitoring the urban environment; designing the technological solutions for monitoring of the urban environment; development of relevant competencies in the field of environmental monitoring using the intellectual analysis of heterogeneous data on the ecological state of the urban agglomeration.
Direct results
The program should result in:
1. A prototype of the UAV and associated ground equipment for monitoring in an urban environment.
2. Methods, algorithms and software for processing the data and images received from UAV to solve the tasks of flight planning, monitoring, mapping in the process of environmental support in urban agglomeration.
3. Recommendations for the implementation of technological solutions for monitoring the urban environment.
4. Technical and user documentation on the use of the system.
Publications
1) at least 5 (five) articles and (or) reviews in peer-reviewed scientific publications on the scientific direction of the program, indexed in the Science Citation Index Expanded Web of Science database, included in the 1st (first), 2nd (second) and (or) 3rd (third) quartile according to the impact factor in the Web of Science database and (or) having a percentile on CiteScore in the Scopus database not less than 50 (fifty).
2) at least 7 (seven) articles in the journals recommended by the Committee for Quality Assurance in Science and Higher Education of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education
3) at least 1 (one) monograph or training manual in foreign and (or) Kazakhstani publishing houses;
4) at least 1 (one) patent in foreign patent offices (European, American, Japanese) or at least 1 (one) foreign or international patent included in the Derwent Innovations Index database (Web of Science, Clarivate Analytics) or at least 3 (three) intellectual property objects registered in the National Institute of Intellectual Property of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Indirect results of the program
1) Improving the environmental performance of the city economy by controlling and then subsequently influencing the reduction of harmful emissions, waste, etc.
2) Reduction of energy and heat consumption in households and production facilities through the control of heat leaks.
3) Improving the quality of life of the population by improving the ecological environment of the city 4) Improving the educational level by introducing the results of the program into the educational process of specialists training.