Real-time Distribution of an Airborne Situational Picture into Command and Control Systems

The Modular Aerial Camera System (MACS) has been developed, built and operated for more than a decade at the Institute of Optical Sensor Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR, Berlin). It is a highly flexible system which is adapted to a wide range of carrier systems like Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS), helicopters or piloted aircrafts. It is used for a variety of applications like mapping of environmental changes, 3D-reconstruction and urban mapping. One of the main goals of the system is to provide fast and reliable georeferenced information and situational awareness for civil security applications. In this paper we present the most recent developments of MACS, enabling the integration of georeferenced image mosaics in real-time into command and control (C2) systems, GIS-software and mobile devices for first responders. The use of satellite communication systems allows the worldwide use of MACS even in destroyed environments without telecommunication services. The georeferenced image mosaics are disseminated to end users worldwide via web- map services. The developments are illustrated along several use cases including forest-fire and flooding. The transfer of selected scientific developments and technologies to operational use and integration into C2 systems is done with commercial partners as part of the Helmholtz Innovation Lab OPTSAL. The workflow has successfully been certified to be integrated into a Web Map Service standard protocol, so the MACS-data can be shared in GIS systems worldwide. For disaster relief situations we demonstrated a workflow for integration and distribution of our live-map to all teams via the United Nations (UN) International Search And Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG) coordination management system. Further developments include the use of onboard-classification to extract relevant information and reduce the amount of data to be transferred

Geoprofiling in the Context of Civil Security: KDE Process Optimisation for Hotspot Analysis of massive Emergency Location Data

In the performance of their duties, authorities and organisations with safety and security tasks face major challenges. As a result, the need to expand the knowledge and skills of security forces in a targeted manner through knowledge, systemic and technological solutions is increasing. Of particular importance for this inhomogeneous end user group is the time factor and thus in general also space, distance, and velocity. Authorities focus on people, goods, and infrastructure in the field of prevention, protection, and rescue. For purposive tactical, strategic, and operational planning, geodata and information about past and ongoing operations dispatched and archived at control centers can be used. For that reason, a rule-based process for the geovisual evaluation of massive spatio-tempotal data is developed using geoinformation methods, techniques, and technologies by the example of operational emergency data of fire brigade and rescue services. This contribution to the extension of the KDE for hotspot analysis has the goal to put the professional and managerial personnel in a position to create well-founded geoprofiles based on the spatial-temporal location, distribution, and typology of emergency mission hotspots. In doing so, significant data is generated for the neighborhood of the operations in abstract spatial segments, and is used to calculate distance measures for the Kernel Den-sity Estimation (KDE) process. At the end there is a completely derived rule-based kde process for the geovisual analysis of massive spatio-tempotal mass data for hotspot geoprofiling

City-ATM – Live Drone Demonstrations of new Concept Elements enabling Operations in Urban Areas

In a future airspace management system for unmanned and manned airspace users - especially when enabling flights in urban areas - a large number of constraints and requirements must be considered in order to ensure a safe and efficient integration of new airspace users. These airspace users can be very diverse and include, in addition to VFR traffic, also other participants such as personal air vehicles, cargo UAS, parachute jumpers, weather balloons or prioritizing air traffic, e.g. rescue helicopters. In addition to aspects relating to different UAS/PAV design, performance and capabilities, further requirements for protecting flight areas (so-called geo-fencing) or board autonomous flights are to be considered in an urban ATM concept. In the City-ATM project, a concept for future air traffic management in urban airspace was developed, which enables safe and efficient integration of new airspace users. The concept includes the definition and validation of operational and technical concepts for airspace management, information provision, traffic flow and monitoring as well as defining a communication, navigation and surveillance infrastructure. Based on these concepts, a simulation and demonstration platform for urban ATM has been developed in City-ATM. From 2018 to 2021, the City-ATM project investigated new concept elements enabling drone flights in urban areas. City-ATM was a DLR funded project and was carried out in close collaboration with 6 external partners Auterion, DFS, FlyNex, KopterKraft, NXP, and ZAL. In total, three live demonstrations have been prepared and conducted, showing different aspects on how drones can be operated in urban areas in a safe and efficient way