Ad hoc network for emergency rescue system based on unmanned aerial vehicles

Abstract

Intelligent Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) on emergency rescue are widely used to detect injured mountaineers in inaccessible areas. These systems should satisfy several features. It is important to know the georeference of the injured mountaineers. It is also important to have real-time images of the area where people have suffered the accident. In this paper, we present the development of a UAV integrated within a wireless ad hoc network and the communication protocol that is able to transfer data between several UAV’s and the Smartphones carried by the mountaineers. This paper also shows how ad hoc networks extend the 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 someone within a zone. Experimental results show the big potential of this kind of networks working in hostile environments such as big mountains, ravines and river canyons without GSM signal communication.