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

Multimodal Registration and Fusion for 3D Thermal Imaging

3D vision is an area of computer vision that has attracted a lot of research interest and has been widely studied. In recent years we witness an increasing interest from the industrial community. This interest is driven by the recent advances in 3D technologies, which enable high precision measurements at an affordable cost. With 3D vision techniques we can conduct advanced manufactured parts inspections and metrology analysis. However, we are not able to detect subsurface defects. This kind of detection is achieved by other techniques, like infrared thermography. In this work, we present a new registration framework for 3D and thermal infrared multimodal fusion. The resulting fused data can be used for advanced 3D inspection in Nondestructive Testing and Evaluation (NDT&E) applications. The fusion permits the simultaneous visible surface and subsurface inspections to be conducted in the same process. Experimental tests were conducted with different materials. The obtained results are promising and show how these new techniques can be used efficiently in a combined NDT&E-Metrology analysis of manufactured parts, in areas such as aerospace and automotive

Improving wildland fire spread prediction using deep U-Nets

Forest fires are able to cause significant damage to humans and the earth's fauna and flora. If a fire is not detected and extinguished before it spreads, it can have disastrous results. In addition to satellite images, recent studies have shown that exploring both weather and topography characteristics is crucial for effectively predicting the propagation of wildfires. In this paper, we present FU-NetCastV2, a deep learning convolutional neural network for fire spread and burned area mapping. This algorithm predicts which areas around wildfires are at high risk of future spread. With an accuracy of 94.6% and an AUC of 97.7%, the model surpassed the literature by 3.7% and exhibited a 1.9% improvement over our previous model. The proposed approach was implemented using consecutive forest wildfire perimeters, satellite images, Digital Elevation Model maps, aspect, slope and weather data

Applying Deep Learning for Breast Cancer Detection in Radiology

Recent advances in deep learning have enhanced medical imaging research. Breast cancer is the most prevalent cancer among women, and many applications have been developed to improve its early detection. The purpose of this review is to examine how various deep learning methods can be applied to breast cancer screening workflows. We summarize deep learning methods, data availability and different screening methods for breast cancer including mammography, thermography, ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging. In this review, we will explore deep learning in diagnostic breast imaging and describe the literature review. As a conclusion, we discuss some of the limitations and opportunities of integrating artificial intelligence into breast cancer clinical practice

Recent Advances in Infrared Face Analysis and Recognition with Deep Learning

Besides the many advances made in the facial detection and recognition fields, face recognition applied to visual images (VIS-FR) has received increasing interest in recent years, especially in the field of communication, identity authentication, public safety and to address the risk of terrorism and crime. These systems however encounter important problems in the presence of variations in pose, expression, age, occlusion, disguise, and lighting as these factors significantly reduce the recognition accuracy. To prevent problems in the visible spectrum, several researchers have recommended the use of infrared images. This paper provides an updated overview of deep infrared (IR) approaches in face recognition (FR) and analysis. First, we present the most widely used databases, both public and private, and the various metrics and loss functions that have been proposed and used in deep infrared techniques. We then review deep face analysis and recognition/identification methods proposed in recent years. In this review, we show that infrared techniques have given interesting results for face recognition, solving some of the problems encountered with visible spectrum techniques. We finally identify some weaknesses of current infrared FR approaches as well as many future research directions to address the IR FR limitations

Reinforcement learning for swarm robotics: An overview of applications, algorithms and simulators

Robots such as drones, ground rovers, underwater vehicles and industrial robots have increased in popularity in recent years. Many sectors have benefited from this by increasing productivity while also decreasing costs and certain risks to humans. These robots can be controlled individually but are more efficient in a large group, also known as a swarm. However, an increase in the quantity and complexity of robots creates the need for an adequate control system. Reinforcement learning, an artificial intelligence paradigm, is an increasingly popular approach to control a swarm of unmanned vehicles. The quantity of reviews in the field of reinforcement learning-based swarm robotics is limited. We propose reviewing the various applications, algorithms and simulators on the subject to fill this gap. First, we present the current applications on swarm robotics with a focus on reinforcement learning control systems. Subsequently, we define important reinforcement learning terminologies, followed by a review of the current state-of-the-art in the field of swarm robotics utilizing reinforcement learning. Additionally, we review the various simulators used to train, validate and simulate swarms of unmanned vehicles. We finalize our review by discussing our findings and the possible directions for future research. Overall, our review demonstrates the potential and state-of-the-art reinforcement learning-based control systems for swarm robotics