Great Falls, VA – Kashmir World Foundation is pleased to announce it has received a $10,000 grant from the Jordan & David Smith, Edward John Noble Foundation. These funds will support the MiSHELL a sea turtle activity monitoring drone project. The project started on St. Catherines Island with a goal is to expand worldwide for sea turtle conservation by educating, training and equipping sea turtle biologist with autonomous drones that can detect, characterize and alert biologists on the condition and location of sea turtle nests.
In 2015, Kashmir Robotics began research and development to design, fabricate, integrate, and operate “MiSHELL,” a fully autonomous custom drone with the ability to collect and process data onboard. MiSHELL is being “trained” to perform the functions of human beach walkers by identifying, characterizing, locating turtle tracks, following the tracks to locate nests, observing nests, and report their location and condition, which could be either a nest or a false crawl.
The funding will support: (1) Education and training on drone design, build, operation and maintenance of unmanned aerial systems for sustainability and in field maintenance and repairs by sea turtle conservationists.
(2) Increased efficiency for sea turtle population monitoring and estimation by covering larger areas of beach in less time, with fewer obstacles translated into a larger number of nests and turtles tagged throughout the season.
"This grant will help Kashmir Robotics test and develop autonomous drone technology on with sea turtle conservationists on St. Catherines Island in Georgia. MiSHELL will revolutionize sea turtle conservation serving as eyes in the sky for biologists to conserve and protect sea turtles from extinction. We believe within the next couple of years, through education, hands-on drone building and operating training the impact from this grant will be seen worldwide." Princess Aliyah, Executive Director KwF.