Performance Analysis of an Aerial Remote Sensing Platform Based on Real-Time Satellite Communication and Its Application in Natural Disaster Emergency Response

Abstract

The frequency of natural disasters has increased recently, posing a huge threat to human society. Rapid, accurate, authentic, and comprehensive acquisition and transmission of disaster information are crucial in emergency response. In this paper, we propose a design scheme for an aerial remote sensing platform based on real-time satellite communication. This platform mainly includes a civilian heavy-duty unmanned aerial vehicle, ground observation system with the self-developed orthographic image stabilization device, wireless communication system with an airborne mobile communication device using Ku band, ground satellite information receiving station, and data processing and application analysis system. The image stabilization capability of the ground observation system and the communication capability of the wireless communication system were verified through ground and flight tests respectively. The results showed that the stability accuracy of the platform was better than the theoretical threshold, the system transmission rate was not less than 2 M bandwidth, the data packet loss rate was low, and the time delay was not more than 2 s. The images captured in the experiment were clear, with a resolution of less than 1cm and an overlap rate of more than 70%. These all results meet the emergency observation requirement, which indicates that the aerial remote sensing platform based on real-time satellite communication has great potential for application in natural disaster emergency response.