During the month of February 2017 WADI partners ONERA and SCP successfully achieved the first flight tests dedicated to the optimized wavelength detection definition.
ONERA's Busard motorglider platform equipped with hyper-spectral and infrared cameras flew over the facilities of the Société du Canal de Provence (SCP), in the South-East of France, and recorded images of the water network including buried ductile iron pipes in three locations: Rians (close to Aix en Provence), Valtrède (Martingues) and Cabardèle (Salon de Provence).
The three flights provided high quality images in the measurement spectrum of IR (band III, between 8000 and 14000 nm), SWIR (between 1000 and 2500 nm) and VNIR (between 400 and 1000 nm). ONERA, scientific coordinator of the WADI project, is currently processing the images in order to define the most efficient wavelength among the 416 collected for the detection of soil humidity. This test will lead to define the WADI prototype and the measurement strategy for future campaigns.
In the next few weeks, SCP will release controlled leaks in view to a second test phase (WADI -2), scheduled for the end of April 2017.
30 March 2017