Coordinating Aerial Robots and Unattended Ground Sensors for Intelligent Surveillance Systems

Abstract

Abstract:Sensor networks are being used to implement different types of sophisticated emerging applications, such as those aimed at supporting ambient intelligence and surveillance systems. This usage is enhanced by employing sensors with different characteristics in terms of sensing, computing and mobility capabilities, working cooperatively in the network. However, the design and deployment of these heterogeneous systems present several issues that have to be handled in order to meet the user expectations. The main problems are related to the nodes' interoperability and the overall resource allocation, both inter and intra nodes. The first problem requires a common platform that abstracts the nodes' heterogeneity and provides a smooth communication, while the second is handled by cooperation mechanisms supported by the platform. Moreover, as the nodes are supposed to be heterogeneous, a customizable platform is required to support both resource rich and poorer nodes. This paper analyses surveillance systems based on a heterogeneous sensor network, which is composed by lowend ground sensor nodes and autonomous aerial robots, i.e. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), carrying different kinds of sensors. The approach proposed in this work tackles the two above mentioned problems by using a customizable hardware platform and a middleware to support interoperability. Experimental results are also provided.

Scalable Task Allocation with Communications Connectivity for Flying Ad-Hoc Networks

“…A key requirement is a physical medium to receive, process, and broadcast pheromones, much like how ants deposit pheromones on the ground that accumulate and evaporate over time. This can be achieved using heterogeneous agents such as static ground nodes [87][88][89], or mobile stigmergic markers [90,91]. However, these approaches reduce flexibility as they divide the swarm into sub-swarms that require agents to take on specific roles and responsibilities.…”

A sequential Colonel Blotto game with a sensor network

“…The integrals (18)(19) represent the utility functions of a first-price all pay auction game [20]. Now in our case, there is in addition either an upper or a lower bound on Player A's allocation variable x A j depending on whether j ∈ I 0 or j ∈ I 1 .…”

“…One particularly applicable example is the Unattended Ground Sensor (UGS). These small ground based sensors provide an early warning system to notify defending forces of a perimeter breach [18].…”