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  • Conservation Partners Celebrate Green River Dam Removal

    Today, five conservation partners celebrated the largest dam removal in Kentucky history—the

  • MKARNS Nav Notice No. 21-41 Lock 1 DS Approach

    MKARNS - Due to the rapid drop of water levels in the Mississippi River and shoaling at NM 9.9 in the downstream approach to Norrell Lock (No.1) NM 10.3, the navigation channel is currently impassable to commercial tows.

  • U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to hold events for National Public Lands Day, Sept. 25, 2021

    The Albuquerque District welcomes volunteers to continue the annual tradition of public service by participating in this year’s National Public Lands Day on Saturday, Sept. 25. See the news release for all the information on events at USACE-Albuquerque District lakes.

  • USACE’s mobile Blue Roof sign-up vehicles in Tangipahoa, Lafourche, Assumption, Ascension, Livingston parishes

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is announcing the latest mobile locations for its Blue Roof program sign up starting Sept 20.

  • Rescued bird steals hearts before its return to nature

    Temperatures were pushing 100 degrees by noon in East Sacramento on July 9. Still, U.S. Army Corps

  • USACE seeks comments on draft Norfork Lake Master Plan

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is hosting Norfork Lake Master Plan update workshops Sept. 30 and Oct.1 to share the draft master plan and associated environmental compliance documents with the public. USACE will also collect public comments during the workshops.

  • Integration of Autonomous Electric Transport Vehicles into a Tactical Microgrid: Final Report

    Abstract: The objective of the Autonomous Transport Innovation (ATI) technical research program is to investigate current gaps and challenges and develop solutions to integrate emerging electric transport vehicles, vehicle autonomy, vehicle-to-grid (V2G) charging and microgrid technologies with military legacy equipment. The ATI research area objectives are to: identify unique military requirements for autonomous transportation technologies; identify currently available technologies that can be adopted for military applications and validate the suitability of these technologies to close need gaps; identify research and operational tests for autonomous transport vehicles; investigate requirements for testing and demonstrating of bidirectional-vehicle charging within a tactical environment; develop requirements for a sensored, living laboratory that will be used to assess the performance of autonomous innovations; and integrate open standards to promote interoperability and broad-platform compatibility. This final report summarizes the team’s research, which resulted in an approach to develop a sensored, living laboratory with operational testing capability to assess the safety, utility, interoperability, and resiliency of autonomous electric transport and V2G technologies in a tactical microgrid. The living laboratory will support research and assessment of emerging technologies and determine the prospect for implementation in defense transport operations and contingency base energy resilience.

  • Autonomous Navigation and Mapping in a Simulated Environment

    Abstract: Unknown Environment Exploration (UEE) with an Unmanned Ground Vehicle (UGV) is extremely challenging. This report investigates a frontier exploration approach, in simulation, that leverages Simultaneous Localization And Mapping (SLAM) to efficiently explore unknown areas by finding navigable routes. The solution utilizes a diverse sensor payload that includes wheel encoders, three-dimensional (3-D) LIDAR, and Red, Green, Blue and Depth (RGBD) cameras. The main goal of this effort is to leverage frontier-based exploration with a UGV to produce a 3-D map (up to 10 cm resolution). The solution provided leverages the Robot Operating System (ROS).

  • A Multi-biome Study of Tree Cover Detection Using the Forest Cover Index

    Abstract: Tree cover maps derived from satellite and aerial imagery directly support civil and military operations. However, distinguishing tree cover from other vegetative land covers is an analytical challenge. While the commonly used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) can identify vegetative cover, it does not consistently distinguish between tree and low-stature vegetation. The Forest Cover Index (FCI) algorithm was developed to take the multiplicative product of the red and near infrared bands and apply a threshold to separate tree cover from non-tree cover in multispectral imagery (MSI). Previous testing focused on one study site using 2-m resolution commercial MSI from WorldView-2 and 30-m resolution imagery from Landsat-7. New testing in this work used 3-m imagery from PlanetScope and 10-m imagery from Sentinel-2 in imagery in sites across 12 biomes in South and Central America and North Korea. Overall accuracy ranged between 23% and 97% for Sentinel-2 imagery and between 51% and 98% for PlanetScope imagery. Future research will focus on automating the identification of the threshold that separates tree from other land covers, exploring use of the output for machine learning applications, and incorporating ancillary data such as digital surface models and existing tree cover maps.

  • Performance Testing and Modeling of a Transpired Ventilation Preheat Solar Wall: Performance Evaluation of Facilities at Fort Drum, NY, and Kansas Air National Guard, Topeka, KS

    Abstract: This work performed measurement and verification of installed, operational solar wall systems at Fort Drum, NY, and Forbes Field, Air National Guard, Topeka, KS. Actual annual savings were compared estimated savings generated by a solar wall modeling tool (RETScreen). A comparison with the RETScreen modeling tool shows that the measured actively heated air provided by the solar wall provides 57% more heat than the RETScreen tool predicted, after accounting for boiler efficiency. The solar wall at Fort Drum yields a net savings of $851/yr, for a simple payback of 146 years and a SIR of 0.16. RETScreen models indicate that the solar wall system at Forbes Field, Kansas Air National Guard, Topeka, KS saves $9,350/yr, for a simple payback of 58.8 years and a SIR of 0.34. Although results showed that, due to low natural gas prices, the Fort Drum system was not economically viable, it was recommended that the system still be used to meet renewable energy and fossil fuel reduction goals. The current system becomes economical (SIR 1.00) at a natural gas rate of $16.00/MMBTU or $1.60 /therm.