Ad hoc Network for Emergency Rescue System based on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

Intelligent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) on emergency rescue is widely used to detect injured mountaineers in inaccessible areas. These systems should satisfied several features. On the one hand, it is important to know the georeference of the injured mountaineers. It is also important to have real-time images of the situation and the area where people have been hilly. For this reasons, in this paper, we present the development of a UAV integrated within a wireless ad hoc network and a communication protocol able to transfer between several UAV’s and Smartphones working with Android OS. This paper also shows how to extend the concept of ad hoc network on Smartphones to extend wireless coverage for emergency situations in critical areas without GSM cellular coverage. After developing our system, we have focused our effort on demonstrating the correct operation of our UAV and its network performance when the system is used to track within a zone. Experimental results show the big potential of this kind of networks working on hostile terrain such as big mountains, ravines and river canyons without GSM signal communication.