Small unmanned airships for remote perception

8th International Airship Convention, Bedford, 2010
Climate-1 Paper 20
Small unmanned helium airships with electric power plant as
low cost remote-sensing platforms
Adrian Peña Cervantes
UAS (Unmanned Aerial Systems) Consultant,
Mexico City, Mexico.
Abstract
As long as developing nations in Latin America make efforts to mitigate climate changes
in their regions, the economic factor plays a major role in the implementation of
affordable solutions. In the next years, mitigating climate change programs in Latin
America will employ in larger scale aerial vehicles to collect, analyze and making
modeling for biomass and soil carbon in community-level agricultural, agro forestry, or
forestation/reforestation projects. In this case, unmanned remote sensing platforms
could substantially change the costs and reliability of monitoring mitigation projects and
enable greater participation even from small-scale agriculture in local communities
across the region, where the use of satellite mapping or manned aircrafts could
represent a prohibitive use because of the costs implied. The primary tool to map and
estimate land cover or land use at the regional and local level could be a low-cost,
unmanned helium airship under development by institutes and company partners in
Mexico, Spain, Ecuador, Canada and USA which represents a better cost effective
platform not needing specialized airfields, including energy efficient electric power plant
with a photovoltaic envelope generator for auxiliary power storage devices, dependable
new soil-analytical techniques that use visible-near-infrared reflectance (VNIR)
spectroscopy and the most important: better training and operation qualities for farm and
agro forestry operators.

Paper 20 Adrian Peña Cervantes
8th International Airship Convention, Bedford, 2010 2
1 INTRODUCTION
According to the National Forest and
Soil Inventory of Mexico 2004-2009 [1],
In Mexico have evolved some 15,000
different plant species (between 50 and
60 percent of known species of Mexico
so far) that are Mexico’s endemic. This
means that half or more of Mexico’s
flora cannot found anywhere else in the
world. If one species becomes extinct in
Mexico, it disappears completely from
the world. This is an example of critical
biodiversity issue that faces not only
Mexico but most of the countries across
Latin America region, fig 1. [2]
Fig.1: Forests at Risk in Latin
America, with Assessment of Level of
Threat. Image taken from the United
Nations Environment Program
through its global environment
outlook (GEO) website [2].
Although over the past two decades,
Sustainable Forest Management (SFM)
has become an environmental issue
worldwide, there is a widespread
concern about high rates of forest loss
and degradation in many areas. This
states the need for new efforts by local
agro-forestry communities and
governments to collect new field data for
model parameterization, as existing
forest inventory data are few and in
constant change.
In recent years, Mexican and Latin
American Biologists have indicated that
forests in the region may be subjected to
a variety of different activities
simultaneously, which may have
interactive effects on ecological
processes and the exploration of such
interactions remains a significant
modeling challenge in environment
protection in the region [3].
A key current challenge for SMF is to
develop adequate cost/benefit methods
for mapping the value of different
ecosystem services on which livelihoods
depend so this information may be
incorporated in a high rate in spatial
planning. Such analyses obtained in a
big scale could potentially be integrated
with spatially explicit models of forest
dynamics, providing a tool for exploring
provision of ecosystem services under
different scenarios of environmental
change. The research outputs obtained
are also requested to support the
development and implementation of
policies relating to SFM, through the
development of decision-support tools
and management recommendations.
Actually, the Satellite and Manned
aircrafts mapping is a widely used tool to
obtain statistical models of the spatial
dynamics of forest cover, species
distribution data, and other GIS
(Graphical Interface Systems)
information among Latin America
countries, in order to identify areas of
actual or potential biodiversity loss, and
thereby helping to identify priorities for
conservation actions.
As another widely used tool, the local
surveys and mapping by forest and
agriculture technicians are performed

today through a combination of
conventional, manned aircraft fly-overs
and foot patrols. Manned aircraft have a
high cost rate, very high greenhouse
gas emissions, are dangerous, intrusive
in ecosystems and are not very good
platforms for long and detailed imagery
aerial photography due their normal high
speed - high altitude above ground level
flight conditions. In the other hand,
conventional patrols are obviously very
labor intensive, and thus slow and
dangerous for human beings.
These decision-support tools mentioned
before permit the adequate production
of map-based research outputs using
survey techniques and GIS (Graphical
Interface Systems) and greatly facilitate
data integration and presentation in a
form that can be understood by decision
makers and provide a tool for exploring
the potential impacts of different policy
interventions. However, it is desirable to
find decision-support tools that perform
the same mapping activities, but with
better cost-benefit conditions for the
FSM challenges previously mentioned in
this introduction.
According to the previous assessment, it
is the purpose of this paper to propose
the embrace of airship technology as an
affordable remote perception and
mapping platform in accordance with
Latin American boundary conditions
given by the economic and ecological
circumstances.
The use of small unmanned helium
airships for remote perception in forest
and agriculture industry can represent a
viable option capable to efficiently
complement satellites, offering an
excellent reactivity and a more
permanent availability to the relevant
environment specialists.
These unmanned airships will bridge the
gap between what can be measured by
satellites and what is measured at static
ground-based, research stations. They
are easy to transport, relatively simple to
deploy in forest or remote geographic
areas as well as easy to launch and
recover by on-field operators and agro-
forestry specialists.
They provide real advantages in terms
of modularity, silence, substantial
autonomy and high degree of
controllability during normal and
scheduled day and night hours.
Most of Its missions will take place
within visual line-of-sight and at altitudes
ranging from 150 to 500 feet and are
therefore outside airspaces used by
manned aircraft. Consequently, a
significant number of remote perception
applications could rapidly be fulfilled with
this UAV Lighter-than-air technology.
Additional to technological benefits,
these systems reduce human life
exposure in long, dull, intrusive and
dangerous air missions for forestry and
agriculture use. They provide potential
economic savings and environmental
benefits with less fuel consumption, less
greenhouse gas emission, and less
disruptive noise than for manned
aircraft.
Given the economic constrains, the
procurement of an unmanned airship
system is facilitated by the low required
financial outlay and the less
sophisticated payload requirements
(when compared to military and manned
aircraft) despite the lower training
burden for forestry and agro-forestry
operators.
These Small Unmanned airships can be
widely used for additional monitoring of
wildlife and nature observation, and
reveal excellent capabilities in support of
the SFM policies and actions by the use

of hyper-spectral imagers ranging the
VNIR (Visible and Near Infrared 400 -
1000 nm) and SWIR (Short-
Wavelength Infrared 900 - 1700 nm)
spectrum. These cameras have a world-
wide use in various manned and
unmanned environment projects. They
represent the most growing technology
tools in remote perception techniques to
identify spectral features that are related
to water stress, nutrient deficiency and
pest infestation, among many other
biophysical characteristics.
Relaying the experience gained in
Mexico during the last years with RPV
Small Airships, Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles and GNC (Guidance,
Navigation and Control) techniques, it
was decided to create in a true
interdisciplinary spirit, a teaming with
biologists, agriculture researchers,
environmental engineers, airship
experts, forestry technicians, renewable
energy experts, institutes, companies
and UAV professionals in different
countries as Mexico, Spain, USA,
Canada and Ecuador to create an
airship technology test-bed
demonstrator in the next years serving
the agriculture and forestry community
in Latin America region with commercial
and industry standards.
This airship project is believed to be a
successful technology development
consortium that brings recent advances
in ultra-lightweight fabrics, composites,
thin-film solar cells and unmanned
control techniques, to create a small
unmanned airship as outlined in this
paper to become a viable decision-
support tool for agro-forestry
communities and environment protection
organizations in Latin America.
2 DESIGN
In order to conduct highly dependable
flight operations in harsh forestry
environments at different altitudes
ranging from 0 – 9000 feet above sea
level, the technical characteristics of the
small unmanned airships are planned as
follows:
• 3 small airships versions ranging
7.8 m – 14m long, 3.0m,
maximum diameter.
• Equipped with 4 control rudders
in a ``X shape'' configuration.
• 2 electric motors power plant as
main thrusters providing a
maximum speed 45 km/h,
decreasing in wind gusts to
25 km/h. One Electric motor as
stern propulsion thruster for Yaw
control at low speeds is optional
depending upon versions and
missions requirements.
• Flight endurance: 1- 2 hours with
25Km/h cruising speed.
• Maximum available payload
prospected to 8 kg (18 lb).
• Two envelopes in the airship hull
body. Inner envelope works as
pressure-resistant gas helium
bag.
• Semi rigid configuration with
outer envelope engineered to
maintain rigidity necessary for
the integration of solar cell array,
gondola, stern thruster and
rudders in the airship.
• Flight range according to
electrical propulsion system
(25Km/hr cruise speed) and
autopilot capabilities is
calculated for 5Km (3 Miles).
Figure 2 overviews the main Systems in
the small unmanned airship vehicle
design.

Fig.2: Small airship main systems
and airship design.
The operational requirements for the
unmanned small airship will be designed
under a logistic hierarchical plan
executed under a mandatory flight
operations center, considered to be
implemented in the GCS (Ground
Control Station) System. This system
will provide coordination, monitoring and
control of all systems of the UAVs small
airship versions as well as weather
forecast, computerized strategies and
emergency operations [4].
3 OPERATIONAL FEATURES
3.1 GNC Guidance, Navigation and
Control.
The GNC (Guidance, Navigation and
Control) system provides an autopilot
capability to the airship, so that its flight
path meets the high-level objectives
commanded by the forestry and
agriculture operators. This system also
gathers state and flight conditions
information from itself and all other sub-
systems, and transmits that data in a
telemetry stream back to the GCS
(ground control station). When the
telemetry data is received by the GCS, it
is displayed to the operator via user-
configurable, customized displays. This
feedback loop enables the operator to
monitor the overall airship performance
and then issue commands as necessary
according to the pre-programmed flight
mission.
The onboard GNC (guidance, navigation
and control) system will work
autonomously to perform station
keeping in the presence of varying
winds and rising/falling atmospheric
density. The GNC will be designed
under a R&D program starting with the
creation of control algorithms for the
unmanned airship in accordance to
efficient operational qualities for agro-
forestry operators and portable Ground
Control Stations.
These control algorithms will be tested
using dynamic simulations through
MATLAB – SIMULINK software. These
simulations will identify potential errors
before carrying out any hardware
development, and therefore reducing
greatly development costs [5]
Some of the simulations activities will be
the following:
• Dynamics of the aircraft
• Guidance and navigation
• Control System
• external disturbances (wind, etc ...)
The research outputs from these
simulations will be the following:
• Determine primary control
equations.
• Autopilot dynamics simulations
and control system response to
perturbations.
• Response of different versions
platforms to changes in the
control system.
Previous experience in Unmanned
Aerial Vehicles platforms by the Spanish
and Mexican research companies and
partner institutes in the consortium have
allowed the input of new control theories
in airship technology giving a GNC
(Guidance, Navigation and Control)
system project enrichment. Other

engineering partners in Ecuador have
gained in recent years valuable
experiences in airship projects, GNC
systems as well as unmanned vehicles.
They will provide many on-site tests and
research outputs at different altitudes
above sea level in their region and will
take a design in the simulation loop for
the electric propulsion management
algorithms.
The entire GNC system and Payload
management control system will be
embedded in an on-board rugged high
performance “node” PC from the
Nematron Corporation Company
showed in fig. 3.
Fig. 3: Rugged High Performance
"Node" Industrial PC model nc100
Photo courtesy of Nematron
Corporation, Michigan, USA.
3.2 GROUND CONTROL STATION
Since the small unmanned airship
development intended must be practical
and easy to operate, the operator’s
interface will have a custom design
based in portable and rugged Ground
Control Stations.
The design and development of the
ground control station is carried out
under the graphical programming
language LABVIEW to display the
following control and status data from
the airship’s autopilot, sensors and basic
instrumentation telemetry:
• Latitude, longitude and altitude
from the GPS system on board.
• Latitude, longitude and altitude
from the Kalman filter.
• Airship’s Euler angles.
• Acceleration.
• Angular velocity.
• Airship’s magnetic bearing.
• Static Pressure.
• Dynamic pressure (Pitot-Tube)
according to airship’s
performance at low speeds.
The GCS also provides for the creation
of the following parameters for
transmission to the airship:
• Configuration parameters control
system
• Static pressure in the ground
station.
• Operation Mode.
• Points of programmed path on
the route or planned mission
It has been agreed that a condition of up
to 2 hours endurance is required.
Therefore, for the final system, larger
capacity batteries will be required and
designed in a strategic plan for Solar
Cells chargers and local electrical power
when available at mission’s localities.
In order to obtain the best energy
budget control in an automated version,
the Ground Control Station and on-
board energy management system will
be designed under the most advanced
hardware and HMI (Human Machine
Interface) in the industry. The Red Lion
and Nematron Corporation companies
from USA were selected to provide the
entire SCADA (Supervisory Control and
Acquisition) system), PLC
(Programmable Logic Controllers), PC
embedded Main processors and
Resistive touch screens panels.
Figures 4 and 5 show the display
monitors and HMI hardware interfaces.

Fig. 4: Energy Management SCADA
monitors. Photography courtesy of
Red Lion, Inc.
Fig. 5: Roughed portable PC system
with touch screen monitor for use in
portable Ground Control Stations.
Photography courtesy of Nematron
Corp.
3.3 PROPULSION – ELECTRIC
POWER PLANT
The propulsion will be provided by a
group of electric brushless motors (2
motors) attached to each side of the
gondola below the center line of the
airship and controlled by a dedicated
DSP controller module that takes part of
the GNC design. A third electrical motor
will be installed in the stern portion of
the hull to provide Yaw control under
specific maneuvers at low speeds. This
motor will be driven by the GNC system
as well as the other power plant
equipment and will have a control
algorithm defined under software
simulations and energy management.
The power for these motors is supplied
by a bank of Lithium-Polymer batteries
(14.8V 4-6 cells 1600mAh X 2) carried
at the gondola’s compartment with
1250W maximum electric consumption
for each motor as well as associated
wiring with low current waste cables
along the entire electrical system. The
propeller (14” x 7”) and motors are
protected by a plastic ducted fence
mounted at the end of a bar, which
rotates driven by a servomotor and a
gear system to provide plurality of
controllable pitch thrust vector, in order
to ascend, descend or gain speed in
level flight.
The reason to opt for electric motors
even when they do not weight more than
fuel engines was mainly the clean
energy factor they provide and Control
qualities for the autopilot system. In
comparison with fuel engines they are
less powerful, meaning reduction in the
maximum reachable speed and the
small possibility to fly in wind gusts.
Anyway, the missions foreseen for
remote perception missions in forestry
and agriculture lands do not require fast
operation speeds but quite and low
vibration flights. Their main drawback is
the weight of the required batteries,
which considerably reduces the
available payload onboard. Even when
battery technology has reached amazing
weight loss options, it is even a major
factor to overcome in the present
outlined airship project.
3.4 SOLAR POWER ARRAYS
“Solar energy is attractive in an
environmentally conscious age. Sunlight
is a renewable, free non-polluting and
non-inflammable fuel” (G. Khoury,
Airship Technology, Chapter 16) [6].
Under this concept, the solar power
system and cell arrays to be installed in
the upper external surface of unmanned
airship’s envelope, will be designed and
constructed in Spain and Mexico by a
couple of private research centers,
taking a screening of the most promising

technologies in photovoltaic solar cell
arrays based on requirements for the
harsh environments where the Small
unmanned airship will be operating.
An analysis of costs and market
conditions for selected photovoltaic
technology is associated to this
screening program to meet the
requirements of the intended tasks,
considering possible locations of the
solar cells in the unmanned airship that
could be consistent with the specific
regional maps of radiation in the forest
regions where agro-forestry remote
perception operations will be executed.
The target in mind in the research group
for solar cell arrays is energetic
efficiency under limited energy
consumption for essential telemetry,
payload and GNC (Guidance,
Navigation and Control) Systems, but
not including the electric power plant
which as previously stated in this paper,
will require a large amount of electrical
power only guaranteed by battery
systems.
Progress toward the implementation and
encapsulation of photovoltaic materials
and their integration into the envelope in
final unmanned airship system assembly
has been slow but the first research
outputs found viable application
solutions. One of them would be the
thermoplastic or thermosetting polymeric
materials applied under different
manufacturing processes as
thermoforming, resin infusion and
bonding.
The cell arrays development program
considers in a step-by-step procedure
the study results provided by structure
and stress analyst engineers in the
research group for the selection of
photovoltaic cells mechanical properties
as following:
• Stiffness / flexibility and
resistance.
• Low weight.
• General operating conditions as
temperature, pressure, cycles of
work, mode of operation,
environmental conditions, etc.
• Permeability / leakage materials.
• Service Lifetime.
• Maximum costs (cost/benefit).
3.5 DATA LINK
The Small Unmanned Airship missions
require the use of a dependable data
link to control and command the
unmanned GNC (Guidance, Navigation
and Control) system. A second data link
will be installed on-board to down-link
the real-time hyper spectral camera, as
well an optional gyro-stabilized payload
video streaming with a telemetry
wireless sensor network. This WSN
(Wireless Sensor Network) could pick-
up sensor status signals across the
forest and agriculture lands under
monitoring.
Appropriate high speed Data Link will be
designed by institutes and companies in
Mexico, Spain and USA to ensure that
maximum benefits shall be provided to
the unmanned airship operations with a
high level of safety. Previous
experiences in unmanned aerial
systems and High Altitude Platforms
telecommunications programs have lead
the research group to envision and
propose highly dependable wireless
technology to be integrated as Data link
system on board the small unmanned
airship [7].
Standardization and compatibility with
broader telecommunications strategies
according to the Unmanned Aerial
Systems trends in the world will be
considered as main design criteria from
the start point. Data Link necessary

connectivity exists, and the required
frequency and bandwidth to control the
unmanned aircraft are available, but the
main fact from this point is to design the
entire unmanned system in a worldwide
wireless normalization and
standardization format.
According to general operational terms,
the Data Link will operate mainly in the
line-of-sight of the unmanned airship
and in continuous presence of radio
coverage. The knowledge of all flying
parameters (down-linked to the control
station by telemetry) is essential to
ensure the appropriate handling of the
airship. In addition, when automatic
phases of flight are conducted, the pilot
must be able to take over direct control
of the unmanned airship during take-off
and landing stages as well as in the
case of unexpected or emergency
situations along the mission path with
radio coverage availability.
An outside line-of-sight operation or
radio coverage lost strategy will relay to
the autopilot’s GNC (Guidance,
Navigation and Control) system to
autonomous command the airship for a
“back home” maneuver and tracking the
aircraft position in real time under
emergency RF signal beacons. This will
help the operators in the GCS (Ground
Control Station) to track and maintain
command of the aircraft under different
emergency conditions.
Figure 6 shows an overview of the entire
Data Link system and a WSN (Wireless
Network System) system.
3.5.1 WIRELES SENSOR NETWORK
As mentioned before in the Data Link
description, there is a practical approach
for a type of forest monitoring system
solution in a telemetry format to improve
the presence of the monitoring
equipment and to introduce wireless
sensor networks technology.
This WSN system could enable on-field
biologists to unobtrusively collect new
types of data, providing a new decision-
support tool for static mapping of
physical conditions along the forest or
agriculture lands. The flight operations
across forestry and agriculture lands
additional to obtain imagery and
mapping through GIS photogram, could
become a sensor’s status collector in
areas previously prepared with sensor
nodes in trees, soils, waterways, rivers
and any other biophysical status sensor
necessary.
The hardware design of sensor network
nodes and network protocols for forest
monitoring will be conducted by
Biologists and telecommunication
engineers in research institutes in
Mexico, Canada and Spain in order to
obtain a specialized custom technology
test-bed with wide applications
capabilities.
The principle of operation of this system
is based under the assumption that the
small unmanned airship operations
along the mission corridors established
in environment monitoring programs will
provide the opportunity to collect
through wireless telemetry, sensed data
and re-transmit to the field biologists this
information during flight visits to its
coverage areas. Collected data also will
be stored in the on-board database
server, which will serve the user's
management software queries. Users
will be able to access a real-time display
of forest information and also
dynamically interact with the wireless
sensor network through the Ground
Control Station Mission management
software.

The sensing devices that can be
installed on individual trees or
agriculture and forestry soils are the
following:
• CO2 sensor.
• Humidity and temperature
sensors.
• Pressure sensor.
• Soil moisture sensors.
Figure 6 shows the wireless sensor
network and its associated displays
through the Data Link system.
Fig. 6: Data Link and Wireless Sensor
Network.
3.6 PAYLOAD - HYPERSPECTRAL
CAMERA
The small unmanned airship will employ
spectral imaging techniques to identify
spectral features that are related to
surveys of forest and agriculture land,
obtaining high spatial, spectral, and
temporal resolution imagery from
biophysical parameters as water stress,
nutrient deficiency, pest infestation in
woodland and soils as many others.
In order to obtain this data acquisition
and image sequence into the system’s
payload port, the research group
conducted an evaluation trial for the
selection of a very small, lightweight,
and robust hyper spectral imaging
instrument capable of being deployed in
harsh environments such as those
encountered in the forest monitoring
activities. This hyper spectral imaging
instrument, built by the company
Headwall Photonics Inc. (Fitchburg MA,
USA), has a totally-reflective, aberration-
corrected concentric imager design with
an f/2.8 optical aperture, covering
spectral ranges in the VNIR- Visible
and Near-Infrared (400 - 1000 nm) and
in the SWIR-Short-Wavelength
Infrared (900 - 1700 nm). The
aberration-corrected, concentric imager
design delivers extremely low distortion
over an exceptionally large Field of
View, a large aperture for high signal to
noise ratio (SNR), and very low stray
light for accurate radiometric
measurements, all very critical
specifications in a spectral imaging
instrument. The fully-integrated Micro-
Hyperspec™ (Fig 7) Imaging
Spectrometer model weighs 2.2 lbs
including fore optic lens and 2-D
camera.
In the other hand, the weight of the
additional technical equipment mounted
on the payload port is a critical
constraint expected to become around
10 lb including shock resistant fanless
Industrial PC built by the Nematron
Corporation Company, the Data Link
equipment as well as associated power
supplies and batteries for the support of
the hyper spectral payload tasks.

Fig 7: Micro-Hyperspec™ Imaging
Spectrometer. Photography, courtesy
of Headwell Photonics, Inc.
4 CONCLUSIONS
The small unmanned helium airship
could be considered as a “flying robot”.
However, we are far from being able to
design actual lighter-than-air
autonomous flying machines with highly
developed and reliable artificial
intelligence. This project in terms of
unmanned aerial vehicles systems is a
new opportunity to increase autonomous
tasks for airships platforms. Despite,
“unmanned” term might give the wrong
idea that there is no “flight crew” or “no
man in the loop”, the human part of the
operation will be the main aspect in the
flight/mission tasks. Furthermore, the
“man in the loop” for remote perception
activities will be mainly the field
biologists, the agriculture and forest
technicians and the ecologists that know
really “what to see” in environmental
terms and “what to look for” in spectral
imagery terms. The autonomous ability
inherent to the small airship through its
autopilot system and GNC system will
assist mainly the operators to conduct
easer and more precise operations and
to reduce work load activities in a highly
dependable control loop from the
Ground Control Station.
Another important aspect to solve in this
project will be the legal and regulatory
implications with civil authorities like
FAA (Federal Aviation Administration),
DGAC (Dirección de Aviación Civil, in
spanish –General Direction of Civil
Aeronautics, in English) in Mexico and
other aviation regulatory organisms as
ICAO (International Civil Aviation).
Generally speaking, if we want to get
airborne the small unmanned airship in
a commercial sustainable mode, first we
need to get the corresponding
certificates and/or permits, and one of
them is the one that certifies the
airworthiness of the system for the
intended unmanned operations.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (or UAVs)
can fly in segregated air space as well
as in non-segregated air space. When
flying in non-segregated air space, they
shall do so with the same safety
guarantees as manned aircraft. This is
therefore an issue with multiple
dimensions, such as legal, regulatory
and certification, which need to be
addressed globally therefore not in
isolation one from the others. [7]
In Latin America, UAV/AUS regulations
are a very unclear subject, but the
project outlined in this paper means an
opportunity to open discussions about
the way to introduce new
standardizations for lighter-than-air
unmanned aerial vehicles in the region.
Despite technical, administrative and
budgeting issues, the proposed small
unmanned airship project under
consortium model in different countries
is a great opportunity to expand the
lighter-than-air technology knowledge in
Latin America with an environmental,
technological and social deep impact.
“If you have built castles in the air, your
work need not be lost; that is where they
should be. Now put the foundations
under them” -
Henry David Thoreau, American author,
poet, naturalist, historian and
philosopher.

5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• I express my gratitude to the
National Council for Science and
Technology (CONACyT) of
Mexico [9] for its funding and
technical support to airships and
unmanned vehicles programs in
previous years. Without the
Mexican government policies to
support science, technology and
innovation, this research project
could not be possible.
• I acknowledge with gratitude the
valuable help of biologists from
the Institute of Ecology AC of
Mexico, INECOL [10] for their
valuable engagement, advice,
and review of various materials
to help me understand the
environmental problems faced in
Mexico and Latin America and to
help me take my project involved
in the environment conservation.
• I want to express sincere
appreciation for the intense and
dedicated work performed by the
funders, members and
collaborators of the International
Airship Association to promote
the airship technology. Their
advice and enthusiasm are
invaluable for Latin American
airship researchers.
• I would like to express my
gratitude to the Western
Hemisphere Information
Exchange, especially to Ricardo
Arias from the Science &
Technology Stability directorate
of the U.S. Southern Command
for their support to my research
activities thorough the invitation
to join conferences and forums
devoted to unmanned vehicles
systems and environmental
projects in Latin America [11].
6 REFERENCES
[1]National Forestry Commission
http://www.conafor.gob.mx/bibliotec
a/Inventario-Nacional-Forestal-y-de-
Suelos.pdf El Inventario Nacional
Forestal y de Suelos de México
2004-2009. Una herramienta que
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