Forest fires detection based on image processing obtained using UAV

Authors: Kataev M. Yu., Kartashov E. Yu., Geyko P. P.

Annotation: Forest fires represent a serious natural risk causing economic losses, loss of life and significant environmental damage. In different countries of the world, including in Russia, research has been carried out to develop solutions for the detection and subsequent monitoring of forest fires. The most common ones are remote fire detection and monitoring systems, both ground-based (mobile or stationary), airborne (airplanes and helicop-ters), and satellite-based ones. These systems are highly effi-cient in data collection and fire detection, but for small areas. However, wildfires can cover large areas, making known ap-proaches unsuitable for optimal spatial coverage. To overcome this limitation, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are proposed, that have proven to be useful due to their maneuverability, al-lowing the implementation of remote information acquisition in any direction, the flight route planning strategies, etc. Ultimate-ly, they provide a low-cost alternative to established approaches for real-time detection and monitoring of wildfire areas. This article discusses a technique for early detection of forest fires based on UAV image processing, which is based on the previ-ous works of the authors. The technique involves the use of computer vision algorithms for processing images received from an unmanned motor glider (UMG). The UMG route (for example, circular or elliptical) can be designed in such a way that it is possible to regularly receive information about a large area. The flight time of the UMG can be up to several hours. When transmitting the received images to the processing center, it becomes possible to extract information about the detection of a forest fire and subsequently control its spread.

Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicles, forest fires, image, processing tech-nique