Forest fire monitoring with multiple small UAVs

Abstract

Frequent updates concerning the progress of a forest fire are essential for effective and safe fire fighting. Since a forest fire is typically inaccessible by ground vehicles due to mountainous terrain, small unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) are emerging as a promising means of monitoring large forest fires. We present an effective UAV path planning algorithm utilizing infrared images that are collected on-board in real-time. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our path planning algorithm in realistic scenarios, we simulated the propagation of a forest fire with the EMBYR model. A new cooperative control mission concept is introduced where multiple low-altitude, short-endurance (LASE) UAVs are used for fire monitoring. By employing multiple UAVs, the effectiveness of the mission in terms of information update rate can be improved dramatically.