UAS for Public Safety: Active Threat Recognition

Abstract

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS), commonly referred to as drones, are used for military intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance and extended for civil aerial photography and videography for cinema, construction, and agricultural jobs. Similarly, drone usage has utility for public safety entities; however, it must provide a value proposition to the resource-constrained agency as better, faster, and cheaper than existing tools to become integrated. Thermal infrared sensors were only available to military and manned aviation law enforcement units in the past. Recently, the cost of thermal infrared sensors has decreased and ushered in a new capability of an affordable dual sensor, electro-optical thermal infrared cameras. Additionally, research in wildlife monitoring has suggested that near-infrared (NIR) sensors could also be used to detect differences between a target and its background (Hewitt, 2021).