Solar-Powered UAV Platform System: A Case Study for Ground Change Detection in BRIC Countries

Abstract

This paper aims to present some applications in Geospatial Technology area, from the use of UAV, Communication, IT and High Performance Computing tools. Important research topics in this area are the detection of changes in multiple images of a soil region to security, deforestation identification and changes in plantations, river courses, shorelines and glaciers. Students, teachers and researchers from four BRIC countries: Brazil, Russia, India and China are conducting joint research in low-cost systems involving aircraft powered by solar energy (Russian team), communication systems over long distances (Chinese team), change detection algorithms in the soil (Brazilian team) and cloud based distributed systems for identification of the type of change detected (Indian team). Some intermediate results already achieved individually by each team are also presented and discussed in this study.