Intelligent Autonomous Surveillance of Many Targets with Few Uavs

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) offer tremendous potential as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms for early detection of security threats and for acquisition and maintenance of situation awareness in crisis conditions. However, using their capabilities effectively requires addressing a range of practical and theoretical problems. The paper will describe progress by the “Autonomous Rotorcraft Project,” a collaborative effort between NASA and the U.S. Army to develop a practical, flexible capability for UAV-based ISR. UAV-BASED SURVEILLANCE As long as there have been aircraft, aircraft have been used for surveillance missions. Balloons were used by both sides in the American Civil War. The Rumpler Taube monoplane was used for military surveillance before the onset of World War I. Although Tesla patented a device for remote control for boats as early as 1898, it wasn’t until the middle of the twentieth century that practical systems became available for intelligence gathering using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Recent innovations in UAV hardware and software technologies, as well as economies of scale, make UAVs feasible for increasingly diverse airborne observation missions [7]. There are a variety of current and proposed applications of UAVs for US Homeland Security. The US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Border Patrol tested UAVs in its Arizona Border Patrol Initiative, aimed at minimizing illegal and dangerous border crossings. According to the CBP [6], the advantages of UAVs included advanced image recognition systems in both day and night-time monitoring, longer dwell time (in comparison to manned Blackhawk helicopters) resulting in more sustained coverage, decreased need for human resources and the ability to work in dangerous conditions, which results in increased safety for ground agents. In addition to land border patrol, UAVs have application in maritime, harbor and littoral patrol and in monitoring