Towards an Autonomous Vision-Based Unmanned Aerial System against Wildlife Poachers

Sensors

Miguel A. Olivares-Mendez²  Changhong Fu¹  Philippe Ludivig²  Tegawendé F. Bissyandé²  Somasundar Kannan²  Maciej Zurad²  Arun Annaiyan²  Holger Voos²  Pascual Campoy¹ 

[1] Centre for Automation and Robotics (CAR), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM-CSIC), Calle de José Gutiérrez Abascal 2, 28006 Madrid, Spain;Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust, SnT - University of Luxembourg, 4 Rue Alphonse Weicker, L-2721 Luxembourg, Luxembourg;

关键词: unmanned aerial vehicles;    computer vision;    animal tracking;    face detection;    vision-based control;    object following;    autonomous navigation;    autonomous landing;    anti-poaching;   

DOI  :  10.3390/s151229861

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Poaching is an illegal activity that remains out of control in many countries. Based on the 2014 report of the United Nations and Interpol, the illegal trade of global wildlife and natural resources amounts to nearlybillion every year, which is even helping to fund armed conflicts. Poaching activities around the world are further pushing many animal species on the brink of extinction. Unfortunately, the traditional methods to fight against poachers are not enough, hence the new demands for more efficient approaches. In this context, the use of new technologies on sensors and algorithms, as well as aerial platforms is crucial to face the high increase of poaching activities in the last few years. Our work is focused on the use of vision sensors on UAVs for the detection and tracking of animals and poachers, as well as the use of such sensors to control quadrotors during autonomous vehicle following and autonomous landing.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.