Unmanned Aerial Systems for Wildland and Forest Fires

Wildfires represent an important natural risk causing economic losses, human death and important environmental damage. In recent years, we witness an increase in fire intensity and frequency. Research has been conducted towards the development of dedicated solutions for wildland and forest fire assistance and fighting. Systems were proposed for the remote detection and tracking of fires. These systems have shown improvements in the area of efficient data collection and fire characterization within small scale environments. However, wildfires cover large areas making some of the proposed ground-based systems unsuitable for optimal coverage. To tackle this limitation, Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) were proposed. UAS have proven to be useful due to their maneuverability, allowing for the implementation of remote sensing, allocation strategies and task planning. They can provide a low-cost alternative for the prevention, detection and real-time support of firefighting. In this paper we review previous work related to the use of UAS in wildfires. Onboard sensor instruments, fire perception algorithms and coordination strategies are considered. In addition, we present some of the recent frameworks proposing the use of both aerial vehicles and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UV) for a more efficient wildland firefighting strategy at a larger scale.Comment: A recent published version of this paper is available at: https://doi.org/10.3390/drones501001

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in environmental biology: A Review

Acquiring information about the environment is a key step during each study in the field of environmental biology at different levels, from an individual species to community and biome. However, obtaining information about the environment is frequently difficult because of, for example, the phenological timing, spatial distribution of a species or limited accessibility of a particular area for the field survey. Moreover, remote sensing technology, which enables the observation of the Earth’s surface and is currently very common in environmental research, has many limitations such as insufficient spatial, spectral and temporal resolution and a high cost of data acquisition. Since the 1990s, researchers have been exploring the potential of different types of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for monitoring Earth’s surface. The present study reviews recent scientific literature dealing with the use of UAV in environmental biology. Amongst numerous papers, short communications and conference abstracts, we selected 110 original studies of how UAVs can be used in environmental biology and which organisms can be studied in this manner. Most of these studies concerned the use of UAV to measure the vegetation parameters such as crown height, volume, number of individuals (14 studies) and quantification of the spatio-temporal dynamics of vegetation changes (12 studies). UAVs were also frequently applied to count birds and mammals, especially those living in the water. Generally, the analytical part of the present study was divided into following sections: (1) detecting, assessing and predicting threats on vegetation, (2) measuring the biophysical parameters of vegetation, (3) quantifying the dynamics of changes in plants and habitats and (4) population and behaviour studies of animals. At the end, we also synthesised all the information showing, amongst others, the advances in environmental biology because of UAV application. Considering that 33% of studies found and included in this review were published in 2017 and 2018, it is expected that the number and variety of applications of UAVs in environmental biology will increase in the future

Adoption of vehicular ad hoc networking protocols by networked robots

This paper focuses on the utilization of wireless networking in the robotics domain. Many researchers have already equipped their robots with wireless communication capabilities, stimulated by the observation that multi-robot systems tend to have several advantages over their single-robot counterparts. Typically, this integration of wireless communication is tackled in a quite pragmatic manner, only a few authors presented novel Robotic Ad Hoc Network (RANET) protocols that were designed specifically with robotic use cases in mind. This is in sharp contrast with the domain of vehicular ad hoc networks (VANET). This observation is the starting point of this paper. If the results of previous efforts focusing on VANET protocols could be reused in the RANET domain, this could lead to rapid progress in the field of networked robots. To investigate this possibility, this paper provides a thorough overview of the related work in the domain of robotic and vehicular ad hoc networks. Based on this information, an exhaustive list of requirements is defined for both types. It is concluded that the most significant difference lies in the fact that VANET protocols are oriented towards low throughput messaging, while RANET protocols have to support high throughput media streaming as well. Although not always with equal importance, all other defined requirements are valid for both protocols. This leads to the conclusion that cross-fertilization between them is an appealing approach for future RANET research. To support such developments, this paper concludes with the definition of an appropriate working plan

Evaluation of the utility and performance of an autonomous surface vehicle for mobile monitoring of waterborne biochemical agents

Real-time water quality monitoring is crucial due to land utilization increases which can negatively impact aquatic ecosystems from surface water runoff. Conventional monitoring methodologies are laborious, expensive, and spatio-temporally limited. Autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), equipped with sensors/instrumentation, serve as mobile sampling stations that reduce labor and enhance data resolution. However, ASV autopilot navigational accuracy is affected by environmental forces (wind, current, and waves) that can alter trajectories of planned paths and negatively affect spatio-temporal resolution of water quality data. This study demonstrated a commercially available solar powered ASV equipped with a multi-sensor payload ability to operate autonomously to accurately and repeatedly maintain established A-B line transects under varying environmental conditions, where lateral deviation from a planned linear route was measured and expressed as cross-track error (XTE). This work provides a framework for development of spatial/temporal resolution limitations of ASVs for real-time monitoring campaigns and future development of in-situ sampling technologies

A cooperative multi-robot team for the surveillance of shipwreck survivors at sea

The sea as a very extensive area, renders difficult a pre-emptive and long-lasting search for shipwreck survivors. The operational cost for deploying manned teams with such proactive strategy is high and, thus, these teams are only reactively deployed when a disaster like a shipwreck has been communicated. To reduce the involved financial costs, unmanned robotic systems could be used instead as background surveillance teams patrolling the seas. In this sense, a robotic team for search and rescue (SAR) operations at sea is presented in this work. Composed of an Unmanned Surface Vehicle (USV) piggybacking a watertight Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with vertical take-off and landing capabilities, the proposed cooperative system is capable of search, track and provide basic life support while reporting the position of human survivors to better prepared manned rescue teams. The USV provides long-range transportation of the UAV and basic survival kits for victims. The UAV assures an augmented perception of the environment due to its high vantage point.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Interoperability in a Heterogeneous Team of Search and Rescue Robots

Search and rescue missions are complex operations. A disaster scenario is generally unstructured, time‐varying and unpredictable. This poses several challenges for the successful deployment of unmanned technology. The variety of operational scenarios and tasks lead to the need for multiple robots of different types, domains and sizes. A priori planning of the optimal set of assets to be deployed and the definition of their mission objectives are generally not feasible as information only becomes available during mission. The ICARUS project responds to this challenge by developing a heterogeneous team composed by different and complementary robots, dynamically cooperating as an interoperable team. This chapter describes our approach to multi‐robot interoperability, understood as the ability of multiple robots to operate together, in synergy, enabling multiple teams to share data, intelligence and resources, which is the ultimate objective of ICARUS project. It also includes the analysis of the relevant standardization initiatives in multi‐robot multi‐domain systems, our implementation of an interoperability framework and several examples of multi‐robot cooperation of the ICARUS robots in realistic search and rescue missions

Kelpie: A ROS-based multi-robot simulator for water surface and aerial vehicles

Testing and debugging real hardware is a time consuming task, in particular for the case of aquatic robots, for which it is necessary to transport and deploy the robots on the water. Performing waterborne and airborne field experiments with expensive hardware embedded in not yet fully functional prototypes is a highly risky endeavour. In this sense, physics-based 3D simulators are key for a fast paced and affordable development of such robotic systems. This paper contributes with a modular, open-source, and soon to be freely online available, ROS-based multi-robot simulator specially focused for aerial and water surface vehicles. This simulator is being developed as part of the RIVERWATCH experiment in the ECHORD european FP7 project. This experiment aims at demonstrating a multi-robot system for remote monitoring of riverine environments.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio