Professor Manfred Lange, Director of the Energy, Environment and Water Research Center of The Cyprus Institute, presented to Year 3 students (13/14yr olds) of the Grammar School the Institute’s project ‘Autonomous Flying Platforms for Atmospheric and Earth Surface Observations’ (APAESO). This innovative research project, which is funded by Cyprus’ Research Promotion Foundation, uses unmanned airplanes for environmental monitoring.

During the event, which coincides with the school’s ‘Environment Week,’ project engineers Dr. Stelios Ioannou and Dr. Christos Keleshis demonstrated to the students how the unmanned airplanes work.

Apart from military applications, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), have mostly been used for atmospheric measurements. The APAESO programme will greatly expand the usefulness of such platforms by broadening the range of their application. The platforms are an innovative approach to monitoring and recording conditions in the atmosphere as well as those on the Earth’s surface. The data is used to better understand and predict global environmental changes. Monitoring and assessing atmospheric dust over Cyprus through UAV-measurements will facilitate identifying its real source and will help Cyprus' authorities to address European-Union directives on apparent air-quality-standards violations.

The development of such technology generates huge benefits for the industry in Cyprus and particularly to the adaptation and miniaturization of scientific instruments and their integration as complex measurement modules into unmanned airplanes, which is mastered only by few places in Europe.