Drone lab supports aerial-based research across disciplines

University drone lab empowers students with cutting-edge skills, ahead of the learning curve

The Curlew National Grassland is 50,000 acres of rolling prairie in Oneida and Power counties dotted with weather-worn farm buildings that lean precariously in the sun and wind. The grasslands are visited seasonally by flocks of migrating birds and are home to sharp-tail and sage grouse.

“It’s one of those amazing places that you would never find by accident as you drive through the state,” Range Ecologist Jason Karl said. “It’s way out there in the southeast corner of Idaho, pretty remote.”

Karl, professor in the College of Natural Resources and director of The Rangeland Center at University of Idaho, will visit the grasslands often in coming years. He and Eric Winford, a research assistant professor and associate director of the Rangeland Center, have a research project at the Curlew where, with the help of students, they will make regular drone flyovers to document changes in vegetation in response to land management.

As part of his job as a professor, Karl operates U of I’s Drone Lab, an interdisciplinary research and teaching group located in the Integrated Research and Innovation Center (IRIC) on the Moscow campus. The lab is the epicenter for drone projects led by professors who are part of the lab. Research associated with the lab includes wildland fire recovery research, stream restoration monitoring, weed treatment and seed application, and forest inventory projects. Most of the lab’s projects are carried out by graduate students, and study results are directly used to manage Idaho’s agricultural and natural resources.

When he came to the university almost a decade ago after working as a scientist for the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, Karl was already heavily invested in drone research.

“The dean at the time suggested that faculty on campus doing drone research should coordinate their efforts,” Karl said.

He helped put together the university’s first drone summit where U of I faculty and students shared how drones were being used in research and teaching.

That was the genesis of the drone lab in IRIC 205.

In the well-lit, glass-walled corner of the room with windows on three sides, drones are modified and repaired. Pieces of drones clutter the lab’s work benches and a variety of drones in many sizes — some working, others defunct — are stacked on shelves or hang from the ceiling.

Graduate students in the lab work with faculty members from a variety of U of I departments including in the colleges of Natural Resources, Agricultural and Life Sciences, Science and Engineering.

Karl and Winford’s project on the Curlew grassland, funded by the U.S. Forest Service, uses drone mapping to explore how grazing during different seasons affects abundance of invasive grasses and wildfire fuels on rangelands. Another Rangeland Center project monitors rangeland and riparian restoration projects in southern Idaho.

“A large part of both these projects is drone-based monitoring,” Karl said. “Drones let us cover more ground and measure things that would be difficult with traditional field-based methods.”

Without drones, some aspects of the projects would be too labor intensive and almost unfeasible.

As part of its inventory, the lab employs a drone-mounted Lidar sensor for high-resolution 3D mapping. Lidar, which stands for light detection and ranging, uses laser pulses to measure distances and create 3D maps of land surfaces. The drone Lidar sensor is being used for forest inventory, monitoring stream restoration, measuring snow depth, estimating stockpile volumes and tracking wildfire recovery.

“We’re one of the few groups that has a drone-based Lidar sensor that can be used on any U of I research project or for teaching,” he said.

A recent collaboration with the Intermountain Forest Cooperative resulted in a drone demonstration at the U of I Experimental Forest in which Idaho Forest Group agreed to donate one of its drones to the drone lab. 

“It’s a type of drone we haven’t had before,” Karl said. “It’s a vertical take-off and landing plane. It takes off like a quadcopter then flips over and flies like a plane.” 

The new drone can fly three times as long and cover three times the distance using the same-size battery as a regular drone. 

“We’re training students on this type of drone that many people don’t have access to,” he said.

As drones become staple tools for research, the demand for their use has grown, Karl said, and with the drone lab’s increased popularity, its function has expanded. 

Recently the lab — it currently has over a dozen operational drones in its fleet — was designated a university service center, which allows the lab to provide drone data collection and analysis services to U of I departments and external partners, assisting in research where drones are needed.

“As the legal compliance, training requirements and costs of drones has increased, individual faculty members are having a harder time justifying buying their own drones to collect data, especially for small projects,” Karl said. “The drone lab can provide pilots and equipment to do that.”

A federal government mandate, which went into effect at beginning of 2025, prohibits the use of Chinese-made drones on federally funded projects and may sideline several of the lab’s flying machines. This includes a large drone that has been used in Professor Leda Kobziar’s cutting-edge wildland fire and microbe research.

We have a solid and cutting-edge curriculum that teaches students how to use drones in different applications.Jason Karl, director of the drone lab

“We’ve used this drone for a lot of our wildfire smoke monitoring work,” said Phinehas Lampman, of Headquarters, Idaho, who is a doctoral student and wildland fire researcher who pilots drones equipped with various air samplers, meteorological sensors and cameras for remote sensing over wildfires. Much of the research includes federal funding. “It will be grounded, and we’ll have to replace it with an American-made drone.”

The cost to replace the wildland fire drone will exceed $25,000, he said.

“The new regulations are causing us to retool an entire drone fleet,” Karl said. “Any new federally funded agreements cannot use Chinese-made drones.”

Karl sees the mandate as a small temporary setback that could open opportunities for the lab to establish partnerships with U.S. drone makers, and the law could result in students building their own drones at U of I. 

“We have a solid and cutting-edge curriculum that teaches students how to use drones in different applications,” Karl said.

He expects the lab to expand further, leading the way for drone research in the region.

“I’d really like to see our drone lab at the forefront of developing the use of this technology in all kinds of research and teaching applications,” Karl said. “This is an area that is full of opportunities for innovation, and we at U of I are in a position to take advantage of those opportunities.”

Article by Ralph Bartholdt, University Communications

Photos by Garrett Britton, University Visual Productions

Video by University Visual Productions

Published in February 2025