Killing Rats with GPS

techmaven writes "When Channel Islands National Park officials needed an estimated about 300 rats exterminated on the east side of environmentally sensitive Anacapa Island, Aspen Ag Helicopters got the call. The kill was necessary because the rodents, descendants of rats that reached the island by way of a shipwreck a century or more ago, were decimating the populations of two rare seabirds. And GPS helped the helicopter company do the job."

Comments

Remote Control

[XBL]

I want GPS on my TV remote control, so I can find it.

Re:Remote Control

[mgv]

I want GPS on my TV remote control, so I can find it.

If your remote had a GPS, it would know where it was.
This might not help as much as you would think :)

Michael

A little overstated?

[thesupraman]

An interesting article, however some of it is a some of this is a little hard to swallow...

their statenments about delivering sprays and pellets by air with an accuracy of 'within a foot' would be quite a thing to see, especially when you watch what a helicopters downwash does to items dropped from below it, and allowing for the pilots abilities (remember, the computer is not flying the aircraft here) - I think there cuold be a bit of wishfull thinking involved here, but I'm sure it looks good on the enviromental reports.

I assume they are using DGPS, which is generally available, for example look at:
http://www.navman.co.nz/oem/products/gps/rece ivers /dgps/index.html
also for a basic discussion:
http://boats.com/content/default_deta il.jsp?conten tid=2109
but this will certainly not guarantee you the accuracies they are claiming, at least not unless they are dropping the loads on the fixed beacons DGPS relies on (most provided by the coast guard in the US, also at some airfields).

DGPS is a wonderful development on GPS, but is still not that good. Interesting the russian GLONAS system is a little better (if more expensive for receivers) than GPS.

Re:A little overstated?

[morcheeba]

Although I tried to find evidence on Aspen's site, it wasn't much use (I think they just win an award for terseness - particularily their history). There was some more info on Trimble's website. The AgGPS 132 is the receiver used - it uses satellite-based private subscription differential correction services and the public WAAS.

My initial guess was that the system computer-controlled the sprayers, so that when the GPS system detected that the aircraft was over the correct field and over a not-already-sprayed area, it would trigger the sprayers. To compensate for overlap, some individual sprayer jets may not fire so as to not re-apply over the same area.

But that thinking was all wrong. The Trimflight 3 brochure pdf describes the system very well - it's a precise guidance system aimed at cropdusters-- it includes measuring the field, determining a coverage pattern, guiding the pilot through that coverage pattern (with the help of a lightbar to indicate how far off-track they are), and then doing the recordkeeping to record what was sprayed where. It interfaces to a Crophawk flowmeter, but doesn't look like it controls the flow. This brochure also shows a helicopter doing application - the spray looks like a normal fixed-wing spray; I'm not sure why the downwash isn't blowing it all over!

the problem with this

[Monkelectric]

If they miss just a male and a female rat, the new rats will breed and the offspring will be immune to GPS :=)

Alternatives to GPS extermination

[Ilan Volow]

They could have just wrecked a second ship that happened to contain several hundred cats.

Now, If That Doesn't Just Get Your Goat

[Wintersmute]

You left off the rest of the story.... they paid the Iscariot goat 30 bucks for his troubles, and he tried to turn it down. But they said take it, and he did. Then guilt came to him, and his goat heart was heavy, and he went off and hanged himself. (and became goat jerky)