Forest monitoring through a hybrid system with networks of aerial drones and sensors ; Monitorização florestal através de um sistema híbrido com redes de drones aéreos e sensores

With the technological advances in recent years, the costs of various technologies are decreasing, allowing elements such as aerial drones and sensors to be increasingly accessible, smaller, transportable and also more stable in flight. These developments allow these elements to be used in various areas such as agriculture, surveillance, search and rescue; however, most of the solutions presented require a pilot or require the aerial drone to make a set of decisions that must be predefined before flight. One of the areas where aerial drones can be useful is in monitoring fires and firefighters in forest fire scenarios. One of the solutions proposed in this Dissertation is an algorithm that uses an aerial drone and a temperature sensor to delineate a warm area - a forest fire. Another proposed solution is to rescue firefighters by monitoring them and providing the data for a successful and effective rescue. Lastly, a drone network solution that flies over firefighters in action is proposed, making decisions based on the data they gather from firefighters, which they obtain from their own sensors and which they receive from neighboring aerial drones. Drones are strategically positioned to be able to obtain the information and provide it to a ground station, which contains an interface where it is possible to manage the aerial drones, and view the collected data in a list or in a map, in case of locations. From the developed algorithms, namely the algorithm with the function of tracing the fire perimeter, it was possible to delimit a simulated fire of 404 square meters, using a temperature sensor and a GPS sensor, in approximately 4 minutes. It was also possible to monitor firefighters in action and verify the existence of multi-hop and non-multi-hop scenarios while collecting data and sending it to the ground station, and also to verify that the existence of multi-hop or not, depends on the adaptation of the positioning of the aerial drones in space, according to the movement of the firefighters. In the same ...