 Context of the Project |
UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) provide new opportunities for research in environment sensing. By combining sensors and robots, we can develop applications to enhance security, to search and warn, and to detect hazardous materials.
At present, UAV are mostly constrained to military survey applications. Based on medium-size fixed wings vectors, they operate at high altitude and navigate in obstacle-free environments. Few civil applications exist. They consist in agriculture (spreading) or meteorological (measurements) missions. However, UAV development will highly affect the field of civil Security and Surveillance. UAVs would indeed be better suited for security applications than a ground-based system as they allow a bird’s eye view. Moreover, because of their ability to move around freely, they will be superior to stationary cameras commonly used in security systems.
In addition to security applications, flying robot can be used in many applications, such as detecting chemicals for safety. Mobile robots can be combined with appropriate sensors and greatly expand the potential applications. For example, mobile robots can patrol sensitive areas to detect intruders. Or, after an earthquake, mobile robots may be deployed to detect survivors and provide global data for civil security (Alert E112/ GMES…).
The needs for flying robots, and in particular UAV, is therefore growing. However the current state of the art is insufficient to provide UAV able to monitor public and private sites with efficiency, low costs, and without high level human control.
We will focus on two main key challenges needing to be addressed by UAV.
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| Monitoring of Public and Private Sites |
Monitoring of public and private sites is increasingly becoming a very important and critical issue, especially after the recent flurry of terrorist attacks including the one on the Word Trade Center in September 2001. The Preparatory Action in the field of Security Research (PASR) was thus implemented in order to tackle the problem on a European scale. Concerning technological development, along with the need to develop security systems to prevent terrorist acts comes the need to respond to such acts, should they occur. From this perspective, a particular concern is the security of hazardous materials storage facilities and capabilities to respond to Chemical-Biological-Radiological-Nuclear (BCRN) terrorism aimed at such facilities. It is, therefore, imperative that effective multisensor surveillance systems be developed to protect the society from similar attacks in the future. The new generation of surveillance systems to be developed have a specific requirement: they must be able to automatically identify criminal and terrorist activity without sacrificing individual privacy and industrial secrecy to the extent possible. |
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| Support of Security Teams in their Work |
In particular another key challenge of UAV development today with respect to civilian security and surveillance is the support of security teams in their work, so that a few security guards should be able to monitor their assigned area using remotely operated micro UAV. If an intrusion is detected, the UAV should be able to move faster than any ground-based security robot or a human guard. Such a technology would also have a very high impact on the work of police and law-enforcement. A remotely operated micro UAV could be used for preliminary exploration and situation awareness of a crime scene inside a building without endangering the lives of security personnel or police officers. This miniaturisation should not adversely affect the autonomy of the system, which is a key parameter for effective use in security and surveillance cycles. |
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Context
