Using Public Network Infrastructures for UAV Remote Sensing in Civilian Security Operations

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) enable the in-depth reconnaissance and surveillance of major incidents. Uncontrolled emissions of liquid or gaseous contaminants in cases of volcanic eruptions, large fires, industrial incidents or terrorist attacks can be analyzed by utilizing UAV. Hence, the use of cognitive Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) for distributing mobile sensors in incident areas is in general a significant value added for remote sensing, reconnaissance, surveillance, and communication purposes. Police departments, fire brigades, and other homeland security organizations will have access to medium and small UAV in the near future and will be able to integrate UAV in their work flow. In this paper we focus on the c ivi l ian concepts of operations (CONOPS) for UAV, in particular for smallscale UAV. We present viable concepts at the systems level for leveraging public wireless communication networks for UAV-based sensor networks with respect to existing constraints and user requirements.