Book Description
Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are becoming an almost everyday occurrence. Like many other technologies these UAVs or drones had their start in the military, but as technology has changed and parts have become cheaper more civilian applications have begun to arise. One such application of small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) is the use of them by emergency responders. sUAS can help in the search for missing persons, help firefighters in structural and wildland fires and many other situations that may occur. With the added benefit of carrying sensors and other payloads these systems can not only be used as an eye in the sky they can also provide increased situational awareness. This paper presents the methodology and development of a sUAS that meets the needs of emergency responders and that is used as a testing platform for new sensors and algorithm testing. These algorithms provide the system with further intelligence that can further help emergency responders in critical missions. The focus of this work is in three areas. The first part discusses the SIERRA (Surveillance for Intelligent Emergency Response Robotic Aircraft) project that covers the work done for emergency responders including this and many other projects. The next is the development of the sUAS using commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) parts that are integrated together for enhanced capability of the system including a user interface. The user interface has been created specifically for emergency responders so that they can easily control the aircraft with minimal experience and allows for them to have knowledge of what the UAV sees. Finally, the creation of a flight test plan that new algorithms and sensors can be tested with. This test plan identifies not only the operational procedures of the UAV, but also the risks that are involved. The results of this flight test plan is a series of flight tests that were conducted under a Certification of Authorization (COA). By pulling the logs from the UAV's autopilot data can be used to compare many parts of the system including position over time.