Intro self: name/title. I'm going to take you on a journey through some interesting examples of the work that we do around the world, but also through some provocative questions that I hope will resonate. Provoke a discussion about the development, use, and impact of technologies. Ref Johnny, Tom. We've also had some discussion about (insert question topics here), which lead in nicely to some of my thoughts.

First let me introduce myself.

I do like to cycle around our wonderful city and the wider world, but today was a taxi job due to the drones that I wanted you to take a look at.

But going a little further back, I graduated from Bristol with a 4-year integrated Masters in Aerospace, which I took 5 years over for personal reasons, and there's nothing like 5 years of engineering study to make you want to be anywhere else. I had a range of experiences of supporting young people throughout my youth (I have 100 foster brothers and sisters, I spent summers throwing kids off abseil towers in Scotland), and I thought teaching might be for me. I absolutely loved it, and pretty early on I was leading science departments then setting up new schools, but one day my old Masters project supervisor got back in touch and asked me if I wanted to come back for a PhD making giant robots pretend to be aeroplanes, and there's only one answer I could give to that. Fast forward 15 years, and I've kept up my educational impact work. I've opened up wider routes into Engineering at Bristol and love working with schools and local organisations; I lead and teach on several of our units focused on training our graduates on project, team, and self management through large practical group projects. I've even had the pleasure of seeing students I taught in London secondary schools graduate from my programmes, and I've had the opportunity to take my work in robotics, aerospace, and getting multiple systems working together for shared goals, all around the world.

A brief induction before we start our journey. Lean away from 'drone' in the early days (defence); as soon as Amazon pitched 'delivery by drone' things got a bit easier.

When I say Drone: uncrewed aircraft, single- or multi-rotor, or fixed-wing, or something that can transition between the two so that you get the best of both worlds. Around that there are usually other associated systems, like remote controllers and ground stations, maybe antennas for longer-range communication or more precise positioning and navigation. You might also have multiple drones working together on something, which could be called a 'swarm', generally for larger numbers, or just a 'multi-vehicle system'.

And the drone could be completely human-piloted, from racing drones with first-person goggles where the pilot has direct control over its movement, through to stabilised, GPS-enabled, waypoint-following, or through to completely autonomous, making its own decisions about where to go and what to do. At the moment, for pretty much all civil uses, we need a pilot in the loop with line-of-sight to the drone, able to take over at a moment's notice.

And where are they used? Well, like most robotics, places where we don't want humans for various reasons. Anything from inspecting roofs (ladders and falls from heights are a leading cause of workplace injury and death) to volcanoes (more on that later). My brother is a falconer, who uses drones as part of his bird control business to inspect for nests, making things a lot safer and easier for him. And, not really included in the 3 'd's, we can also use them to extend our capabilities. Agriculture, to survey crops and detect, down to the individual plant, how healthy they are and whether there's any pest or disease that needs treating, allowing 'micro-dosing' of fertilisers and pesticides, minimising unwanted impacts. Earth observation, for wider ecological and geological purposes, often complementing satellite data so that you can get both broad-scale, infrequent measurements, and finer, more customised data.

12 miles off the coast of North Devon. 5 x 1 km, 28 permanent residents. Flat top, steep cliffs. Victorians/earlier colonised, introduced grazing animals, rhododendron, rats. Decimated wildlife and plantlife. Lots of work being done to restore, including census of rare species and further elimination of invasive ones.

Coincya wrightii. Rare and endangered, home to Lundy cabbage beetle and weevil, IUCN red list. Annual census by the Lundy Field Society: top, walk around; cliffs, boats, binoculars, sick bags.

Lundy Island off North Devon: remediation and restoration, census. Rhododendron (for elimination), Lundy cabbage (for conservation).

Expensive: $10m aircraft + $10m sensors. In a less biodiverse environment, what can we do with off-the-shelf drones? £6k DJI M3 Multispectral, an agricultural application.

Spectral sensing primer. RGB, RGB+NIR+RE. Each click adds a band, as in the PowerPoint: red, green, blue; then on the next slide grey and yellow (proxies for near infrared and red edge), red, green, blue.

NDVI. Other postprocessing approaches also available.

Plant ID with limited spectral 'bins'.

Aerial survey: automated images from top down (nadir) and sometimes angled (oblique). Resolution depends on camera pixels (and lens) and altitude, complex tradeoffs with range and endurance. The PowerPoint revealed five survey frames one click at a time; here they cycle automatically, 1.5 s per frame, as one animated WebP.

Orthomosaic/photogrammetry: computer assembles images into one big orthomosaic, can also create a digital elevation model (DEM), and composite into a 3D model.

Tradeoffs with platform/camera, endurance, etc. Also complex terrain can lead to gaps, only noticeable after hours (sometimes 24h+) of processing. Working on 'quick and dirty' on-board 'edge AI' to mop up gaps in-survey.

I lead training for two MSCA doctoral training networks. 12 PhDs across 9 countries. Including local capacity building with field sites in Europe and Africa.

But also custom platforms: solar glider took off with 80% battery, flew for 3h, landed with 90% battery, on a cloudy day! All-day surveying extends capabilities/range.

Unconventional platforms (Teresa Kent, Delft). Low-cost 'blimp' with drone underneath, for soundscape recording without propeller noise.

One of my roles: coordination and training. Ordered chaos!

Mention Danish perspective. I'm plenty busy enough.