ENERGY AND OPERATIONAL ANALYSIS OF CONTINUOUS SURVEILLANCE SYSTEMS BASED ON MULTIROTOR UAVS
Andrii Los, Oleksandr Veligorskyi · Bulletin of the National Technical University «KhPI» Series New solutions in modern technologies · 2024
Drones are used in many applications, including continuous surveillance and monitoring. They can be used in cases, when the deployment time of surveillance system should be as fast as possible, or when a centralized electric grid is not available: accompanying fire extinguishing and liquidation of emergencies, 24/7 surveillance of the border area, monitoring of open-air events. They also can be used as stationary cameras, carrier of means of radio-electronic intelligence, weather conditions intelligence in airport areas, monitoring of crops, etc. The optimal solution for surveillance of large areas, such as critical infrastructure facilities (nuclear power plants, dams), and military facilities (field bases, ammunition warehouses), is the utilization of a group of drones when a single drone will observe his sector. The development of such systems and analysis of conditions for continuous surveillance taking into account the limitations of drone batteries require deep studies of drone energy consumption in various operation modes. The paper proposes a comprehensive investigation of operation modes of continuous surveillance systems, based on drones with electric-supplied propulsion systems, and optimization of its parameters. In the study, a comprehensive analysis of drones’ energy demands was done and conditions for continuous surveillance were found. Based on the parameters of DJI Mavic 2 Enterprise drone and with the use of regression analysis, the optimal flight profile was introduced, for which the maximal achievable distance to the observing point was calculated for the “ideal” case. The case of increasing the drone number for extension of achievable distance to the observation point was investigated and the optimal number of drones for each distance was found. A set of experiments with drone flights was conducted to update and improve the prediction of the drone’s energy consumption during the flight. Finally, the conclusion was set that external parameters, such as wind speed and direction, can significantly decrease the achievable distance to the observing point.