HUVS: Heterogeneous UV Swarm for Homeland Security Tasks

Abstract

We have seen significant progress in the development of unmanned vehicles (UVs) recently, including both unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs). UVs have various applications for homeland security, especially border patrol and surveillance. UGVs and UAVs have different strengths and limitations in these tasks. Generally, a UGV can operate for a long period but can only cover a limited area while a UAV can cover a larger area but operate for a shorter period. While there are also sophisticated UAVs that have a long aloft time, the cost of such a UAV is too high for wide deployment. To address these challenges, we propose a heterogeneous architecture for a UV system that unleashes the potential of UGVs and UAVs. As the UV system may be deployed into hostile environments, we also discuss the details of security enhancements. Furthermore, we discuss methods to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) into the system considering the increased importance of AI technologies for homeland security tasks.