Wetland Soil Strength Tester and Core Sampler Using a Drone

Victor M. Baez,Shreyas Poyrekar,Marcos Ibarra,Yusef Haikal,Navid H. Jafari,Aaron T. Becker,Victor M. Baez,Shreyas Poyrekar,Marcos Ibarra,Yusef Haikal,Navid H. Jafari,Aaron T. Becker

Soil strength testing and collecting soil cores from wetlands is currently a slow, manual process that runs the risk of disturbing and contaminating soil samples. This paper describes a method using an instrumented dart deployed and retrieved by a drone for performing core sample tests in soft soils. The instrumented dart can simultaneously conduct free- fall penetrometer tests. A drone-mounted me...