Siting Multiple Observers for Maximum Coverage: An Accurate Approach

The selection of the minimal number of observers that ensures the maximum visual coverage over an area represented by a digital elevation model (DEM) have great interest in many elds, e.g., telecommunications, environment planning, among others. However, this problem is complex and intractable when the number of points of the DEM is relatively high. This complexity is due to three issues: 1) the di culty in determining the visibility of the terrain from one point, 2) the need to know the visibility at all points of the terrain and 3) the combinatorial complexity of the selection of observers. The recent progress in total-viewshed maps computation not only provides an e cient solu- tion to the rst two problems, but also opens other ways to new solutions that were unthinkable previously. This paper presents a new type of cartography, called the masked total viewshed map, and provides optimal solutions for both sequential and simultaneous observers location.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Exploring multiple viewshed analysis using terrain features and optimisation techniques

The calculation of viewsheds is a routine operation in geographic information systems and is used in a wide range of applications. Many of these involve the siting of features, such as radio masts, which are part of a network and yet the selection of sites is normally done separately for each feature. The selection of a series of locations which collectively maximise the visual coverage of an area is a combinatorial problem and as such cannot be directly solved except for trivial cases. In this paper, two strategies for tackling this problem are explored. The first is to restrict the search to key topographic points in the landscape such as peaks, pits and passes. The second is to use heuristics which have been applied to other maximal coverage spatial problems such as location-allocation. The results show that the use of these two strategies results in a reduction of the computing time necessary by two orders of magnitude, but at the cost of a loss of 10% in the area viewed. Three different heuristics were used, of which Simulated Annealing produced the best results. However the improvement over a much simpler fast-descent swap heuristic was very slight, but at the cost of greatly increased running times. © 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Fast approximation of visibility dominance using topographic features as targets and the associated uncertainty

An approach to reduce visibility index computation time andmeasure the associated uncertainty in terrain visibility analysesis presented. It is demonstrated that the visibility indexcomputation time in mountainous terrain can be reduced substantially,without any significant information loss, if the lineof sight from each observer on the terrain is drawn only to thefundamental topographic features, i.e., peaks, pits, passes,ridges, and channels. However, the selected sampling of targetsresults in an underestimation of the visibility index ofeach observer. Two simple methods based on iterative comparisonsbetween the real visibility indices and the estimatedvisibility indices have been proposed for a preliminary assessmentof this uncertainty. The method has been demonstratedfor gridded digital elevation models

VPP: Visibility-Based Path Planning Heuristic for Monitoring Large Regions of Complex Terrain Using a UAV Onboard Camera

This work was partially supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology through the projects TIN2016-80920-R and PID2019-105396RB-I00, the Regional Government of Andalusia through the project A-TIC-458-UGR18 (DeepL-ISCO) within the Andalucia ERDF2014-20 Operational Programme, and the University of Malaga through the I Plan Propio de Investigacion.The use of unmanned aerial vehicles with multiple onboard sensors has grown significantly in tasks involving terrain coverage such as environmental and civil monitoring, disaster management, and forest fire fighting. Many of these tasks require a quick and early response, which makes maximizing the land covered from the flight path a challenging objective, especially when the area to bemonitored is irregular, large and includesmany blind spots. Accordingly, state-of-the-art total viewshed algorithms can be of great help to analyze large areas and find new paths providing maximum visibility. This article shows how the total viewshed computation is a valuable tool for generating paths that provide maximum visibility during a flight. We introduce a new heuristic called visibility-based path planning (VPP) that offers a different solution to the path planning problem. VPP identifies the hidden areas of the target territory to generate a path that provides the highest visual coverage. Simulation results show that VPP can cover up to 98.7% of theMontes deMalaga Natural Park and 94.5% of the Sierra de las Nieves National Park, both located within the province of Malaga (Spain) and chosen as regions of interest. In addition, a real flight test confirmed the high visibility achieved using VPP. Our methodology and analysis can be easily applied to enhance monitoring in other large outdoor areas.Spanish Government TIN2016-80920-R PID2019-105396RB-I00Regional Government of Andalusia within the Andalucia ERDF2014-20 Operational Programme A-TIC-458-UGR18University of Malaga through the I Plan Propio de Investigacio

A survey of the wind energy resource of Cornwall to examine the influence of settlement patterns and topography on optimum wind turbine size and disposition

The introduction of wind turbines has led to complaints about noise, domination and radio frequency interference from neighbouring properties. The aim of the thesis was to determine how the pattern of rural settlement and topography influences the gross technical resource, and how this resource is affected by various combinations of wind turbine size, type and cluster layout. The work consisted of examining in detail every possible site in Cornwall and every large site in England and Wales. This involved establishing a computer data base where each location was described by over three dozen relevant site characteristics. In determining mean annual site wind speeds at hub height the data from twentysix meteorological stations and the results of over fifty Tala kite ascents were used to calibrate four predictive models for site wind speed and to choose the best one for this thesis. Five noise prediction models were tested against field results for twentytwo wind turbines. All the models were found to be inaccurate and a new prediction method with an accuracy of +/— 3^B(A) was developed. A public perception survey of over sixty households situated near six UK , wind turbines, and an examination of the way in which the 1974 Control of Pollution Act and planning policies are put into effect, both further defined acceptable environmental criteria for wind turbines. Noise and dominance were found to be the most serious restraints, whilst radio frequency interference eliminated over 40% of potential sites. The thesis shows that the resource is inversely related to wind turbine size. In Cornwall, the technical resource is 2.5MW for multimegawatt machines rising to 1555KW for quiet machines of 17m to 19m diameter

Conceptual development of a ground-based radio-beacon navigation system for use on the surface of the moon

A spread-spectrum radio-beacon navigation system for use on the lunar surface is described. The subjects discussed are principle of operation and specifications to include power requirements, operating frequencies, weight, size, and range