Emerging Methods for Early Detection of Forest Fires Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Lorawan Sensor Networks

Abstract

Forest fires are occurring throughout the year with an increasing intensity in the summer and autumn periods. These events are mainly caused by the actions of humans, but different nature and environmental phenomena, like lightning strikes or spontaneous combustion of dried leafs or sawdust, can also be credited for their occurrence. Regardless of the reasons for the ignition of the forest fires, they usually cause devastating damage to both nature and humans. Forest fires are also considered as a main contributor to the air pollution, due to the fact that during every fire huge amounts of gases and particle mater are released in the atmosphere. To fight forest fires, different solutions were employed throughout the years. They ware primary aimed at the early detection of the fires. The simplest of these solutions is the establishment of a network of observation posts - both cheap and easy to accomplish, but also time-consuming for the involved people. The constant evolution of the information and communication technologies has led to the introduction of a new generation of solutions for early detection and even prevention of forest fires. ICT-based networks of cameras and sensors and even satellite-based solutions were developed and used in the last decades. These solutions have greatly decreased the direct involvement of humans in the forest fire detection process, but have also proven to be expensive and hard to maintain. In this paper we will discuss and present two different emerging solutions for early detection of forest fires. The first of these solutions involves the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with specialized cameras. Several different scenarios for the possible use of the drones for forest fire detection will be presented and analysed, including a solution with the use of a combination between a fixed-wind and a rotary-wing UAVs. In the next chapter of the paper, we will present and discuss the possibilities for development of systems for early forest fire detection using LoRaWAN sensor networks and we will analyse and present some of the hardware and software components for the realisation of such sensor networks. The paper will also provide another point-of-view, which will present the involvement of students in the development and in the use of both systems and we will analyse the advantages and the benefits, which the students will gain from their work on and with these solutions.