Dispatching UAVs for wildfire surveillance
A dispatch system includes an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) interface for interfacing with one or more UAVs for wildfire detection. The UAV interface transmits an instruction for a UAV to navigate to a location of a potential wildfire, and receives data captured by at least one sensor of the UAV. The dispatch system further includes a fire detection engine to process the received data to identify the presence of a wildfire, and a web server to provide a user interface that includes an alert regarding the wildfire. The alert may include the location of the wildfire.
1. A dispatch system comprising:
a data ingestion module to receive a location of an emergency caller reporting a wildfire;
an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) interface to:
transmit, to a UAV, an instruction to navigate to a region of a potential wildfire, wherein the region of the potential wildfire includes the location of the emergency caller; and
receive, from the UAV, data captured by at least one sensor of the UAV;
a fire detection engine to process the data to identify the presence of a wildfire; and
a web server configured to provide a user interface comprising an alert regarding the wildfire, the alert comprising a location of the wildfire.
2. The dispatch system of claim 1 , wherein the data captured by the at least one sensor comprises a spectral line emission image comprising at least a portion of the location of the potential wildfire.
3. The dispatch system of claim 2 , wherein the data further comprises a reference image comprising light in a band of wavelengths outside a band of wavelengths of the spectral line emission image, the fire detection engine to compare the reference image to the spectral line emission image to identify the presence of a wildfire.
4. The dispatch system of claim 1 , further comprising a fire prediction engine to calculate a spread prediction based on the data captured by the at least one sensor of the UAV.
5. The dispatch system of claim 1 , further comprising a fire response module to generate a response plan in response to the fire detection engine identifying the presence of the wildfire, the response plan comprising at least one of a number of apparatuses to dispatch, a type of apparatus to dispatch, and a fire mitigation action.
6. The dispatch system of claim 1 , wherein the UAV interface is further configured to instruct the UAV to return to a base station.
7. The dispatch system of claim 1 , wherein the UAV interface is further configured to instruct a second UAV in a fleet of UAVs to navigate to a second location and receive, from the second UAV, second data captured by at least one sensor of the second UAV.
8. The dispatch system of claim 7 , wherein the fire detection engine is configured to process the data from the UAV with the second data from the second UAV to identify the presence of a wildfire.
9. A method for detecting wildfires comprising:
dispatching an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) along a flight path, the UAV comprising a camera configured to capture images of emissions characteristic of wildfires;
receiving, from the UAV, data describing an emission event and an associated location of the emission event;
retrieving data describing at least one wildfire location known prior to dispatching the UAV;
comparing the location of the emission event to the retrieved data describing the at least one wildfire location; and
in response to determining that the location of the emission event does not correspond to a location of a known wildfire, providing an alert comprising the location of the emission event.
10. The method of claim 9 , further comprising:
determining, based on the data describing the emission event and the associated location, a fire response strategy comprising dispatching at least one fire response apparatus to the associated location; and
providing the fire response strategy to a dispatcher.
11. The method of claim 10 , wherein determining the fire response strategy is further based on real-time data describing available resources for responding to a wildfire.
12. The method of claim 10 , wherein determining the fire response strategy is further based on data describing weather conditions in a region comprising the associated location.
13. The method of claim 9 , wherein the data describing the emission event comprises an image captured by the UAV, and the method further comprises processing the image to identify a spectral line emission event.
14. A method for detecting wildfires comprising:
receiving data describing a phone call reporting a potential wildfire, the data comprising a caller location;
assigning, based on the caller location, a flight path to an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), the UAV comprising a camera configured to capture images of spectral line emissions characteristic of wildfires; and
determining, based on images of spectral line emissions captured by the UAV and location data associated with the images, that a particular location imaged by the camera has an active wildfire.
15. The method of claim 14 , further comprising dispatching a fire response apparatus to the particular location having the active wildfire.
16. The method of claim 15 , further comprising selecting at least one apparatus for responding to the active wildfire, and automatically sending instructions to dispatch the at least one apparatus.
17. The method of claim 14 , wherein the UAV is one of a fleet of UAVs, the method further comprising instructing a second UAV in the fleet of UAVs to navigate to a second location, and receiving, from the second UAV, additional images of spectral line emissions.
18. The method of claim 14 , wherein the data comprises a caller location of a mobile phone.
19. The method of claim 14 , further comprising instructing the UAV to return to a location of a UAV base station.