Title: Autonomous wildfire hotspot detection using a fixed wing UAV

Authors: Zhongjie Lin; Denys Bohdanov; Hugh H.T. Liu; Mike Wotton

Addresses: Honeywell Aerospace, 3333 Unity Dr, Mississauga, ON, Canada ' Honeywell Aerospace, 3333 Unity Dr, Mississauga, ON, Canada ' Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto, 4925 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON, Canada ' Faculty of Forestry, University of Toronto, 33 Willcocks St., Toronto, ON, Canada

Abstract: This paper is concerned with wildfire hotspot detection. An autonomous unmanned aerial system (UAS) for wildfire hotspot detection missions is presented and implemented on a fixed wing low altitude short endurance (LASE) UAV. The custom built system includes the features such as hotspot detection, real-time localisation and alert of the ground control station. The on-board computer processes fire information collected by the UAV and integrates with flight data to provide a comprehensive and reliable fire detection algorithm. The proof-of-concept system has been successfully tested through flight experiments.

Keywords: hotspot detection; unmanned aerial vehicle; UAV; wildfire.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASSE.2021.114121

International Journal of Aerospace System Science and Engineering, 2021 Vol.1 No.1, pp.68 - 84

Accepted: 14 May 2019
Published online: 09 Apr 2021 *