Abstract
The coupling of drones and IoT is a major topics in academia and industry since it significantly contributes towards making human life safer and smarter. Using drones is seen as a robust approach for mobile remote sensing operations, such as search-and-rescue missions, due to their speed and efficiency, which could seriously affect victims’ chances of survival. This paper aims to modify the Hata-Davidson empirical propagation model based on RF drone measurement to conduct searches for missing persons in complex environments with rugged areas after manmade or natural disasters. A drone was coupled with a thermal FLIR lepton camera, a microcontroller, GPS, and weather station sensors. The proposed modified model utilized the least squares tuning algorithm to fit the data measured from the drone communication system. This enhanced the RF connectivity between the drone and the local authority, as well as leading to increased coverage footprint and, thus, the performance of wider search-and-rescue operations in a timely fashion using strip search patterns. The development of the proposed model considered both software simulation and hardware implementations. Since empirical propagation models are the most adjustable models, this study concludes with a comparison between the modified Hata-Davidson algorithm against other well-known modified empirical models for validation using root mean square error (RMSE). The experimental results show that the modified Hata-Davidson model outperforms the other empirical models, which in turn helps to identify missing persons and their locations using thermal imaging and a GPS sensor.
Highlights
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralThe importance of having reliable wireless communication links and systems during or after manmade or natural disasters is highlighted in [1]
This is followed by introducing the Hata-Davidson empirical propagation model with its tuned results, highlighting the results of the drone’s search-and-rescue missions using its components
The reason why the trail took place on Taif university campus is that we obtained permission from the campus administration to fly drones at designated sites following the rules outlined by the university
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutralThe importance of having reliable wireless communication links and systems during or after manmade or natural disasters is highlighted in [1]. In 2017, Florida was hit by one of the most damaging hurricanes in American history, with winds reaching up to 220 km/h This resulted in around 50% of cell sites going of service, as well as around 1.2 million subscribers losing their wireless connections. During disaster scenarios, spacebased wireless communication systems including satellites, aerial Platforms, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) could offer a wide range of services. These would include, for instance, evaluating damage zones, coordinating rescue teams activities, delivering firstaid kits, accounting for missing people, and delivering good-quality signals in disaster areas [2,3]. Outer-space communication systems would serve as better solutions [4,5]
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