Tracking and Monitoring Unmanned Aircraft Systems Activities with Crowd-Based Mobile Apps

Abstract

Tracking and Monitoring Unmanned Aircraft Systems Activities with Crowd-Based Mobile Apps By Tejaswini Papireddy Dr. Ju-Yeon Jo, Examination Committee Chair Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science University of Nevada, Las Vegas An Unmanned Aircraft System(UAS) is an aircraft without human pilot onboard. They can be controlled remotely from a ground control station (GCS) or can fly autonomously based on pre-programmed flight plans. Tracking and monitoring these UASs activities in the National Airspace System (NAS) is one of the major challenges related to UAS. This system tracks a set of UASs at a given point of time based on the user-submitted tracking information. This thesis presents the basic knowledge of UAS, types of UAS, advantages, and challenges with UASs. The implemented Android application allows the users to submit the observed UAS information to a tracking database server by taking a picture of the UAS. The monitoring system is implemented in Android for retrieving and displaying the UAS activity data from the database server. This system is expected to promote safer airspace by providing the UAS activity information to manned aircraft pilots and other UAS operators to avoid collision. iii