无人机可见光遥感影像地物目标提取技术研究

无人机可见光遥感影像中地物目标边界清晰度较低,容易导致地物目标与背景之间的区分度降低,进而难以提取地物目标。为此,提出无人机可见光遥感影像地物目标提取方法。从光谱特征、纹理特征和边缘特征三个方面分析无人机可见光遥感影像特征。结合三种影像特征对无人机可见光遥感影像数据集实行增广处理。对完成增广后的数据集定义影像编码标签,以此确定地物目标增强权重,通过参量化处理地物目标光谱特征,计算光谱吸收指数,获取地物目标提取表达式,从而实现无人机可见光遥感影像地物目标提取。实验结果表明,所提方法能够保证地物目标边界的清晰度,具有较强的地物目标提取能力。     

A Drones Optimal Path Planning Based on Swarm Intelligence Algorithms

The smart city comprises various interlinked elements which communicate data and offers urban life to citizen. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or drones were commonly employed in different application areas like agriculture, logistics, and surveillance. For improving the drone flying safety and quality of services, a significant solution is for designing the Internet of Drones (IoD) where the drones are utilized to gather data and people communicate to the drones of a specific flying region using the mobile devices is for constructing the Internet-of-Drones, where the drones were utilized for collecting the data, and communicate with others. In addition, the SIRSS-CIoD technique derives a tuna swarm algorithm-based clustering (TSA-C) technique to choose cluster heads (CHs) and organize clusters in IoV networks. Besides, the SIRSS-CIoD technique involves the design of a biogeography-based optimization (BBO) technique to an optimum route selection (RS) process. The design of clustering and routing techniques for IoD networks in smart cities shows the novelty of the study. A wide range of experimental analyses is carried out and the comparative study highlighted the improved performance of the SIRSS-CIoD technique over the other approaches.     

Understanding the structure of risk belief systems concerning drone delivery: A network analysis

While e-commerce industries envision drones as a promising solution to the challenges associated with last-mile logistics of product delivery, there is increasing public concern over the risks of these airborne innovations. A growing number of studies seek to gauge the public's risk beliefs about drone delivery and inform policy development before its widespread uptake. Complicating these efforts is the fact that beliefs are interconnected and embedded in a cognitive system. This article argues that public outcomes are not based on atomized and isolated beliefs about risks involved in drone delivery, but instead emerge from the patterns in the relationships among these expressed beliefs. However, little is known about the structural characteristics of risk belief systems related to drone delivery, and the implications for risk communication and management. In an effort to fill this void, we conducted a network analysis of risk beliefs about drone delivery based on nationally representative data (N = 1465). The results revealed structural connections among 11 risk beliefs and explored structural variations in the risk belief system between people with different attitudes toward drone delivery. The simulation results showed that risk-mitigating messages instigated greater changes to the public's risk perceptions when they targeted structurally central, as opposed to peripheral, risk beliefs. The reported evidence adds new insights into how risks about drone delivery are configured in the public consciousness, and provides guidance into how practitioners may mobilize structural leverage to optimize the effectiveness and efficiency of risk communication strategies.     

Initial insights into the development and implementation of a citizen-science drone-based coastal change monitoring program in the Great Lakes region

High-resolution spatio-temporal data are needed to improve coastal management programs, particularly along the Great Lakes where lake level fluctuations pose challenges to coastal decision-making and planning. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of coastal change monitoring datasets, particularly those that document event-scale changes over a large spatial scale. This paucity of data is compounded by the large size and range of shore types throughout the region.Unoccupied aerial vehicle (UAV) or drone data collected by citizen scientists are a potential solution to this challenge. However, no citizen science coastal change monitoring program exists in the Great Lakes region, nor does a comprehensive drone-based coastal change monitoring programs exist anywhere in the United States. To inform the development of drone-based citizen science programs, the goal of this paper is to describe the development and implementation of a citizen science coastal change monitoring program along the Great Lakes shores of Michigan. The citizens participating in this project generate imagery in two ways: (1) the submission of photos of coastal changes or hazards via a web app developed for the project called PicShores and (2) drone collection of survey-quality aerial imagery for use in the generation of orthomosaic images and digital elevation models (DEMs). This paper presents the methods utilized to develop the citizen science monitoring program, some initial findings from the citizen science monitoring, and explores some challenges and next steps for the program.     

Intricacies of medical drones in healthcare delivery: Implications for Africa

Unmanned aerial vehicles, also known as drones, can play a critical role in delivering health care. In this paper, we reviewed the literature to ascertain (1) the various medical supplies delivered by drones, (2) the challenges to the successful use of medical drones and (3) the potential benefits of medical drones. Implications for the African context is then provided. In achieving this objective, we employed a systematic literature review methodology and defined search strings, searched for relevant literature from PubMed, Scopus and Web of Science databases following a review protocol. The snowball technique was similarly used to search for other papers as well. A total of 17 out of 69 papers were included in the review after screening and applying a quality appraisal criterion. The results indicate that blood, AEDs, drugs, vaccines, and laboratory test samples etc were identified as part of the medical supplies aerially delivered by drones. Regulations, cost, misuse (evasion of people's privacy) and psychological effect on people who experienced drones used for bombing are part of the challenges that could result from using the technology for delivery of medical supplies. The benefits derived from drones range from reducing response times during health emergencies thus helping to save more lives, to being environmentally friendly as the CO₂ emissions levels are lower than conventional delivery by trucks and cars. In conclusion, drone technology has opened a new phase for the health sector and to sustain this technological innovation in Africa, there is the need for inclusive innovation to make drones safer and acceptable. This could be achieved by developing the needed policy framework with the regulators, providing other health resources to complement the use of drones, embarking on sensitizations on the usefulness of drones through cultural underpinnings of rural communities about drones and training the needed health personnel to handle dispatches of medical supplies with drones.     

A mobility compensation method for drones in SG-eIoT

In order to achieve the specific goal of a smart grid, the concept of electricity Internet of Things (eIoT) has been proposed to assist the monitoring and inspection of power transmission line state and optimize the asset utilization. The long power transmission line and the complex field operation environment urge the introduction of drones into the eIoT for fast power transmission line inspection, data collection from sensors for further big data analysis, adaptive control of power line voltage, etc. Additionally, drones can also act as a central communication control or relay point to serve the data exchange among sensors, drones and power transmission line maintenance personnel in the scenario where the conventional mobile communication service is not available. However, the fast mobility of drones may affect the signal transmission and position estimation performance, which may further deteriorate the networking performance. In order to solve this problem, a mobility compensation method is proposed, which includes the steps of frequency offset estimation and relative velocity calculation. Through the Monte Carlo simulations, the proposed algorithm shows favorable gains compared with the conventional ones.     

Lifeguards in the sky: Examining the public acceptance of beach-rescue drones

The use of rescue drones is expected to increase in forthcoming years. However, the success of their implementation through different applications will depend on public acceptance. Studies to date have analyzed public support for the use of drones with various applications, although public acceptance of drones in specific contexts remains to be explored. In particular, the use of drones for beach rescues has proven beneficial in reducing response times, thus helping to save lives. In this study, we analyze the public acceptance of lifesaving drones and their associated variables. Data collected from a survey of beach users (N = 3363) for this study are used to measure public acceptance of rescue drones. We found that public acceptance of rescue drones is moderate, with approximately half of all participants accepting their use. In terms of influencing variables, we found that the factors most associated with their use are ‘perceived benefits’ and ‘perceived risks’. We also found that the participants from beaches without lifeguard services were more likely to accept the use of rescue drones. These results initiated a discussion on the variables that are associated with the public acceptance in the specific context of lifesaving. In addition, based on the results of this study, we propose implementation plans for rescue drones that might also include public information campaigns on their benefits for beach users.     

Drone like dynamics of dromion pairs in the (2+1) AKNS equation

We employ Truncated Painlevé Approach (TPA) to the (2+1) dimensional AKNS equation and construct the solutions in closed form in terms of lower dimensional arbitrary functions of space and time. The highlight of our investigation is that we are able to generate dromions undergoing inelastic and elastic collisions. We observe that the conventional dromions undergo inelastic collision not only exchanging their energy, but also their phase while the dromion pair undergoes elastic collision. In particular, we observe that, we are able to turn ON or OFF the dynamic property of dromion pair by selectively choosing the lower dimensional arbitrary functions with a suitable initial condition. Similar to “drones”, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), dromion pairs can be driven anywhere in the two dimensional plane by selectively giving the initial conditions. In addition to dromions, we have also generated a wide class of localized solutions such as rogue waves and lumps. We observe that while the rogue waves are found to be unstable and stationary, lumps do not interact with other, when they travel in the two dimensional plane.     

The societal impact of commercial drones

The use of drones or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in commercial applications has the potential to dramatically alter several industries, and, in the process, change our attitudes and behaviors regarding their impact on our daily lives. The emergence of drones challenges traditional notions of safety, security, privacy, ownership, liability, and regulation. With their ability to collect data and transport loads, drones are re-shaping the way we think and feel about our physical environment. However, they also burdened with the perception as being surveillance equipment, and their commercial use has been criticizied by both individuals and activist organizations. In parallel, drones have been legitimized by regulations and licenses from federal agencies, are used by companies for surveying, inspecting, and imaging, and their technological development are driven by active communities of hobbyists and enthusiasts. This tension presents unique challenges to their integration in the currently existing public, governmental and private infrastructure. In this paper, we will take a look at a few of these issues to understand how drones influence society, and present reccomendations for practitioners, policy makers, and reseachers studying this phenomenon.