Title

Networked Uavs As Aerial Sensor Network For Disaster Management Applications

Keywords

Aerial sensor networks; Embedded computer vision; Object tracking; Sensor placement

Abstract

Advances in control engineering and material science made it possible to develop small-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with cameras and sensors. These UAVs enable us to obtain a bird's eye view of the environment. Having access to an aerial view over large areas is helpful in disaster situations, where often only incomplete and inconsistent information is available to the rescue team. In such situations, airborne cameras and sensors are valuable sources of information helping us to build an "overview" of the environment and to assess the current situation. This paper reports on our ongoing research on deploying small-scale, battery-powered and wirelessly connected UAVs carrying cameras for disaster management applications. In this "aerial sensor network" several UAVs fly in formations and cooperate to achieve a certain mission. The ultimate goal is to have an aerial imaging system in which UAVs build a flight formation, fly over a disaster area such as wood fire or a large traffic accident, and deliver high-quality sensor data such as images or videos. These images and videos are communicated to the ground, fused, analyzed in real-time, and finally delivered to the user. In this paper we introduce our aerial sensor network and its application in disaster situations. We discuss challenges of such aerial sensor networks and focus on the optimal placement of sensors. We formulate the coverage problem as integer linear program (ILP) and present first evaluation results. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.

Publication Date

3-1-2010

Publication Title

Elektrotechnik und Informationstechnik

Volume

127

Issue

3

Number of Pages

56-63

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00502-010-0717-2

Socpus ID

77950795450 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/77950795450

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