Case Study: National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) achieves enhanced real-time wildfire data collection and field collaboration with VSee

UAVs + VSee for NIST Wildland Fire Protection

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is studying Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires to understand how these destructive wildfires start and spread, a challenge made urgent by the frequency and severity of recent blazes. To gather real-time field data from dangerous or hard-to-reach fire scenes, NIST’s Wildland Fire Protection research project uses small unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or drones) with VSee embedded to stream video and sensor feeds back to researchers.

VSee’s low-bandwidth, real-time video communication (including satellite links) lets remote and field teams instantly share imagery and sensor data, refine UAV flight plans, and collaboratively validate and modify datasets during operations. The vendor’s simple-to-install, easy-to-use solution has accelerated field-research collaboration and noticeably improved the quality and timeliness of NIST’s data collection, with project staff reporting they “benefited tremendously” from using VSee in the field.

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Mike Hennig

UAV Pilot