Drones to manage the urban environment: Risks, rewards, alternatives

David Gallacher, Zayed University

Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

Journal of Unmanned Vehicle Systems

Publication Date

6-1-2016

Abstract

Aerial surveillance can detect visual, heat, vegetation, and atmospheric changes over time, and aerial transport can facilitate the collection of air, liquid and solid samples for later analysis in laboratory conditions. Drones have great potential for urban environmental analysis, but also raise valid concerns about safety, security and privacy. Ground-based monitoring (Internet of Things) can achieve many of these potentials with no risk to safety and a lower perceived risk to privacy and security. Low altitude drones may become limited to clearly defined geographic regions spatially and altitudinally, while higher altitude drones are likely to be accepted for security reasons, and then also used for environmental purposes. Safety records of military drones are still substandard for civilian application, but the technology is rapidly evolving. Whether society will rank safety of drones against that of vehicle traffic, or shark attacks, is not yet clear.

ISSN

2291-3467

Publisher

Canadian Science Publishing

Volume

4

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Scopus ID

85043233334

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Green: A manuscript of this publication is openly available in a repository

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