An Acquisition and Distribution System for Situational Awareness

In times of disaster acquiring aerial images is challenging. Runways may be crippled thus denying conventional aircraft in the area from taking off. Also the time required to schedule a satellite fly-by may delay first response efforts. Man backpackable aerial robots can be carried close to the disaster site and flown to capture aerial images. This paper integrates mechatronics, intelligent sensing, and mechanism synthesis in a teleoperable kite-mounted camera. Rapidly deployable, transportable by foot, easy to fly and affordable, our system can quickly acquire, process and distribute aerial images. Image mosaicing, edge detection, 3D reconstruction and geo-referencing resulting from images acquired by our aerial platform are also presented.