UAV Systems for Sensor Dispersal, Telemetry, and Visualization in Hazardous Environments

The University of Colorado, partnered with the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, MIT, and the University of Oklahoma, has proposed the Center for Cooperative Mobile Sensing Systems (CCMSS), a university, government, and industrial partnership dedicated to the development of integrated unmanned vehicle systems with novel capabilities to revolutionize volumetric in-situ sensing and distributed communications through mobility, cooperation, and affordability. These integrated systems will enable access and persistence in the hazardous and hard-to-reach environments associated with scientific inquiry, natural and man-made disasters, and public safety. These capabilities will be developed and demonstrated through three thrusts: Wildfire to address the sensing, communications, and safety needs to support fire-fighting operations and increase capabilities for modeling and prediction; Polar to deploy heterogeneous mixes of sensor-integrated unmanned vehicles for novel, in-situ data acquisition in volumes that range from beneath the ocean surface into the troposphere; and Storm to address the challenges of volumetric in-situ data acquisition in severe storms, from the ground into the cloud. This paper presents the motivation for the CCMSS and the proposed unmanned vehicle systems.