Autonomous Drones for Surveillance

Nowadays, drones are defined as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that do not need human intervention. As such, they are best known for their use in various military operations such as ht use of weaponized drones for targeted killing, as well as the use of drones for actual monitoring.

New Paper Examines the Potential Use of Drones to Counter Terrorism

A new paper submitted by five authors to the International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) and named “Development of an Autonomous Drone for Surveillance Application” speaks about the potential use of drones in their military applications – but from a perspective of surveillance and countering the domestic and international terrorism.

In times when terrorism strikes as a threat everywhere in our society – and in times when there are many victims from it, the paper describes the possible development of a UAV that would be used for surveillance in the region of deployment for monitoring, based on human body detection as well as uniform color-spotting and pattern recognition.

Working Through a Radio Connection and Sending Live Visual Feedback

Thanks to the recent developments and advancements in the field of engineering, airframes, batteries and microcontrollers are all seen as important concept – and something that can push the development phase for drones to an entirely new horizon.

With a surveillance system like this, UAVs can be managed remotely via radio connection – or a specific system designed for this purpose. The aim is for the UAV to be operated by a radio frequency controller and be able to send live visual feedback which can be controlled by onboard computers or by remote control of a pilot on the ground.

In a case of any remote-controlled drone, there obviously might be a chance of damage in the transmission section which would result in loss of control. However, the authors of the paper have a proposed methodology that would prevent this from happening.

Communication and Interaction as the Most Critical Points

In order to prove that a system like this can function, the authors of this paper took out a drone that uses  four brushless DC motors, GPS module, telemetry, and the receiver. They powered the whole system with a Lithium Polymer battery of 18v.

After preparing it for takeoff, the testers also used a software with a great graphic user interface – making it possible to change the upcoming waypoints altitude, change the mode of flight and even change the direction of the flight of the drone.

Aside from their ready setup, the authors used a mission planner software developed by Michael Oborne which is specifically designed for autonomous flight missions – aiming to achieve communication between base stations and UAVs. With features such as compass calibration, OpenCV and ESC calibration, this drone would work in eight steps as shown on the paper.

Gathering the Results of the Test as a Framework for Future Use of Surveillance Drone Systems Like This

As the authors conclude, an autonomous drone with features like this can be definitely deployed – and more importantly – it can use the GPS mapping features effectively. As they wrote in the paper:

“An autonomous drone using effective utilization of GPS mapping with flight controller has been developed. Live frame visual feedback is sent from drone to the control station, which is used to detect, suspect and notify any unauthorized human entries using body and color detection algorithms.”

The system, according to them, can communicate using the wireless network to receive control instructions from the base stations – and send the images taken from the UAV to the base station. Even though there are new methods being developed for data collection and advanced image processing, the UAV can be deployed with the traditional ones and serve as a medicine-carrying drone as well – especially in cases of medical emergencies or terrorist attacks.

The authors concluded:

“Using autonomous flight mission planning i.e., by setting up waypoints with accurate geographical coordinates it can also serve as medicine carrying drone with first aid treatment facilities which can be used in case of a medical emergency.”

Citation: Development of an Autonomous Drone for Surveillance Application, Dinesh M.A.,Santhosh Kumar S.,Sanath J. Shetty, Akarsh K.N., Manoj Gowda K.M., International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET) e-ISSN: 2395-0056 Volume: 05 Issue: 08 | Sep 2018 | https://www.irjet.net/archives/V5/i9/IRJET-V5I961.pdf