BorderUAS Project: Semiautonomous Border Surveillance Platform Combining a Lighter-Than-Air (LTA) Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with Ultra-High-Resolution Multisensor Surveillance Payload: A Comprehensive Overview
摘要
Border surveillance plays a critical role in ensuring national security by detecting and preventing illegal activities. This chapter presents a novel approach utilizing a lighter-than-air (LTA) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), equipped with ultra-high-resolution multisensor payload, meant for border surveillance (relevant to transnational organized crime activities), search and rescue (SaR), and rough terrain detection. The BorderUAS Project proposes a payload platform equipped with a synthetic aperture radar (SAR), a shortwave/longwave infrared (SWIR/LWIR) and acoustic sensors, coupled with optical and hyperspectral cameras intended for indirect detection. To achieve its goals, BorderUAS is further capitalizing on border police infrastructure (command and control centers), innovative data models for irregular crossing patterns and routes identification, events detection, as well as advanced audio/video analytics, data fusion, and storage. First results show that the proposed solution offers increased operational flexibility, rapid deployment, and comprehensive multisensory coverage and analysis of the surveyed areas.