Low-Cost Smart Surveillance and Reconnaissance Using VTOL Fixed Wing UAV

Generally, surveillance refers to a single, known and mostly static point of interest that is observed for a predetermined amount of time. Similarly, reconnaissance implies a large area to be covered thereby requiring rapid mobility and capability to observe multiple points of interest. Real-time video surveillance is a good way to realize both surveillance and reconnaissance, which involves multiple challenges and complexities; viz., computational efficiency, latency, image quality, etc. The concept of utilizing a fixed-wing VTOL Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) is more appropriate than the conventional fixed-wing UAV or multi-rotors, in terms of the quality of visual imageries, increased operational range, reduced time to target and thereby reduced mission times, minimal dependencies on infrastructure, and so on. This research studies the application of a fixed-wing VTOL UAV for real-time low-latency monitoring systems for reconnaissance; thereby quantifying various benefits, including the practical performance of such a video surveillance system. The simulation required for this research is realized using a Robot Operating System (ROS) and the final model is validated using both hardware and software.