Micro Rapid Mapping: Automatic UAV-based Remote Sensing for Chemical Emergencies

In chemical emergencies, response units rely on the speedy provision of detailed information about the area affected by potentially hazardous substances in order to decide on efficient response actions. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) equipped with remote sensing equipment offer a flexible way of providing this information. Hence, these systems are becoming more and more interesting for firefighters and plant operators alike. Although having to actively control the UAVs makes high demands on the response squad in an already stressful situation, cyber-physical systems that allow the automatic deployment of UAVs have rarely been studied to date. We present and evaluate a system for planning UAV missions in emergency situations. We propose two different planning algorithms: (1) a mapping approach for covering the entire target area; (2) an algorithm that selects sensing locations across a wide area in order to allow quicker exploration. We verify the applicability in an extensive simulative study and demonstrate the information gain achieved, as well as the remaining uncertainty, after a flight, about the spatial phenomenon observed.