EverCopter

Abstract

The paper proposes EverCopter, which provides continuous and adaptive over-the-air sensing with detachable wired flying objects. While a major advantage of sensing systems with battery-operated MAVs is a wide sensing coverage, sensing time is limited due to its limited amount of energy. We propose dynamically rechargeable flying objects, called EverCopter. EverCopter achieves both long sensing time and wide sensing coverage by the following two characteristics. First, multiple EverCopters can be tied in a row by power supply cables. Since the root EverCopter in a row is connected to DC power supply on the ground, each EverCopter can fly without battery. This makes their sensing time forever, unless the power supply on the ground fails. Second, the leaf EverCopter can detach itself from the row in order to enjoy wider sensing coverage. An EverCopter, while it is detached, runs with its own battery-supplied energy. When the remaining energy becomes low, it flies back to the row to recharge the battery.

Orchestration of Smart City Services across Ground, Air, and Space

“…We are also targeting to monitor citizen life by analyzing the amount of their garbage in each area. In addition to car-based ground sensing, we are also deploying drone-based monitoring service [3] as air service. The limitation of garbage collection car is that it can spatially cover in whole Fujisawa but cannot temporally cover because the car run same area only once per day.…”