Unmanned Aerial System-based Tactical Operations for Supporting Emergency Response in Campus Communities

View Video Presentation: https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-1521.vid

Law Enforcement agencies and Police Departments are considering the acquisition of quadrotor-style Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) to add to their fleet of security technologies. UAS have proven to be highly effective tools across a wide variety of domains, including law enforcement. This project is exploring the future role that UAS could play in the safety and security of a university campus community by identifying and analyzing one specific application: automatic deployment of a camera platform UAS from by the police department to any location on campus. The constraints surrounding this application are established, namely buildings, trees, weather, regulations, and pedestrian traffic on the ground. The overall impact and benefit of the system is then quantified by using performance metrics such as range, response time, and time on station of the UAS. Performance is simulated as a function of time of day, deployment location, and wind conditions, and the resulting approach is leveraged as part of future UAS operations planning.