Emerging ICT UAV applications and services: Design of surveillance UAVs

Abstract

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is an aircraft with no pilot. The autonomous flight technology of a UAV is combined with emerging Information and Communication Technology (ICT) applications and services to monitor diverse kinds of environments. UAVs are suitable for surveillance of targets because of their onboard cameras. It is possible to autonomously capture images of surveillance targets based on predefined paths. However, UAVs must generate a flight path for autonomous flight considering the surveillance targets. This paper proposes a UAV control process for surveillance taking into account various aspects of their operation. In particular, because flights of autonomous UAVs are based on analyzed past flight records, this paper first described surveillance using UAVs and then introduced the sequential processes for the generation of optimal UAV flight paths.