Use of Drones (UAVs) for Pollutant Identification in the Industrial Sector: A Technology Review

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) began to be used at the beginning of the 20th century, but only for military purposes; however, nowadays their use has become popular in other areas such as mining, construction, security, agriculture, environment, and for research purposes. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to document a systematic review of the use of UAVs related to environmental science issues. The objective of this article is to identify the different uses of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in an environmental system that will allow the identification, quantification, and data analysis of different variables related to the area of interest such as the concentration of pollutants found within the study area. For the procedure of this article, we used different databases and scientific search engines that allowed us to obtain research conducted from 2019 to 2021. The selection of the reviewed articles was carried out, leaving 25 selected. Finally, it is concluded that more research can still be developed on environmental science topics but focused on flora for its detection, identification, quantification, or monitoring.