Basic rules for the development of the forest fire extinguishing system
OCTOBER, 2022
Subject: Publication of the book chapter
Book Chapter | Pages 181-186
https://doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_29
Abstract: The large fires that have occurred in recent years around the World have shown that the management of these events becomes much more difficult when the extension of the burnt area or the location of the fire fronts, among other fundamental information for those managing operations in theater, is not known. In addition, the large involvement of firefighting resources often challenges the operability of the communications system, sometimes making it dysfunctional or with limited operability. This was a reality seen in several large fires, from which we highlight the Fire of Pedrogão Grande that occurred in Portugal in June 2017.
Aware of the need to improve operational technology for fire monitoring, the Eye in the Sky Project has been developed. Our approach within this project is to design and develop an easy to deploy kit that can be launched from anywhere and fulfill these needs, providing quality real-time aerial imagery of the wildfires and guaranteeing emergency communications. The proposed solution consists of a high-altitude balloon that will carry a flying wing unmanned aerial vehicle with two different high-value types of payloads that meet these two specific functions of imagery collection in the visible and infrared ranges and communications repeater. The authors like to refer to the Eye in the Sky solution as a satellite dedicated to a specific fire.
Naturally, the development of such solution raises several challenges, particularly in terms of the operational functioning of this solution, the optimized use of the balloon/glider pair with the associated payload, the capture, automatic detection of the fire images and their georeferencing, and the communications system between the payload, the ground station and the users in the command center. The several challenges that have arisen in the development of this solution, as well as the current developments, are hereby exposed.
Reference:
[1] Moutinho, A.; Sousa, M. J.; Almeida, M.; Bergano, M.; Henriques, D.; Silva, Dário; Barbosa, D.; Nero, L.; Navarro, A. (2022) Eye in the Sky – Using High-Altitude Balloons for Decision Support in Wildfire Operations. In “Advances in Forest Fire research 2022”. ISBN:978-989-26-2297-2. Pp 181-186. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_29
Article published in international conference IAC-22 - 73rd International Astronautical Congress - Paris, France
SEPTEMBER 18, 2022
On September, 18 of 2022, an article authored by Diogo Silva and José Eduardo Silva [1], was presented in a peer-reviewed international conference, namely IAC-22 – 73rd International Astronautical Congress – Paris, France ( SYMPOSIUM E2 – Title: 50th STUDENT CONFERENCE, Part 1).
The article presents the development of an Earth observation system using a Raspberry PI as a data processing platform. The detection component consists of a custommade VHF quadrifilar helical antenna, a software-defined radio (SDR) USB Dongle and a Raspberry Pi (RPI). The system aims to implement a daily meteorological service publishing in social networks the atmosphere status activity over Portugal and much of the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and its Atlantic adjacent area.
The article is available online, published under an open-access license: https://iafastro.directory/iac/paper/id/72201/summary/
Reference:
[1] Diogo Silva, José Silva, “PINOAA: AN INDEPENDENT DAILY EARTH OBSERVATION SERVICE USING A RASPBERY-PI DATA PROCESSING PLATFORM “, 73rd International Astronautical Congress 2022 50th STUDENT CONFERENCE (E2) Student Conference – Part 1 (1)
Participation in EGU General Assembly 2022
MAIO 23 to 27, 2022
From the 23rd to the 27th of May, Maria João Sousa participated in the “EGU General Assembly 2022”, which took place in Vienna (Austria).
The annual event was organized by the European Geosciences Union.
The following publication was reached.
Reference:
[1] Sousa, M. J., Moutinho, A., and Almeida, M.: Building wildfire intelligence at the edge: bridging the gap from development to deployment, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12432, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12432, 2022.
Presentation of scientific article in international conference
JULY 14, 2021
On July, 14th of 2021, an article authored by Pedro Messias, Maria João Sousa and Alexandra Moutinho [1], was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), a flagship annual international conference of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society focused on fuzzy systems.
The paper presents a fire data annotation method that leverages semantic segmentation based on computer vision and optimization techniques, namely through superpixel aggregation and color features.
The approach introduces interpretable linguistic models that generate pixel-wise fire segmentation and annotations, which are explainable through simple fine-tunable rules that can support subsequent annotation validation by fire domain experts.
The article is available online ( https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9494421/ ), and also available on this page.
Link to the file on ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353723135_Color-based_Superpixel_Semantic_Segmentation_for_Fire_Data_Annotation
Reference:
[1] P. Messias, M. J. Sousa, and A. Moutinho. (2021). “Color-based Superpixel Semantic Segmentation for Fire Data Annotation” in IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ–IEEE), Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 2021, pp.1–7. IEEE. doi: 10.1109/FUZZ45933.2021.9494421.
Article published in international journal Sensors (MDPI)
NOVEMBER 28, 2020
On November, 28 of 2020, an article authored by Maria João Sousa, Alexandra Moutinho and Miguel Almeida [1], was published in a peer-reviewed international journal, namely Sensors from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI).
The article presents analyses of the sensing capabilities and the image processing pipelines of thermal imaging sensors for fire detection applications, paving the way for the development of autonomous systems for early warning and monitoring of fire events.
The article is available online, published under an open-access licence (https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/23/6803).
Reference:
[1] M.J. Sousa, A. Moutinho and M. Almeida, “Thermal Infrared Sensing for Near Real-Time Data-Driven Fire Detection and Monitoring Systems”, Sensors, 2020, 20(23):6803. doi: 10.3390/s20236803
Master thesis in the context of the Eye in the Sky project
October 13, 2020
In October 2020, Vasco Cepêda completed his master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering presenting his work entitled “Simulation of a latex balloon with a hydrogen generation system”.
This work was supervised by professors Alexandra Moutinho and Rui Costa Neto, being developed in the context of the Eye in the Sky Project.
This work can be accessed via the link: https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/1409728525632951
Reference:
[1] V. Cepêda (2020). “Simulation of a latex balloon with a hydrogen generation system”. Thesis to obtain the Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering, in Instituto Superior Técnico from the University of Lisbon. Available at: https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/1409728525632951
Presentation of scientific article in international conference
AUGUST 27, 2020
On July, 22 of 2020, an article authored by Maria João Sousa, Alexandra Moutinho and Miguel Almeida [1], was presented at the World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI), a flagship biennial international conference that joins conferences of the three branches of computational intelligence, namely: fuzzy systems (FUZZ-IEEE), neural networks (IJCNN) and evolutionary computation (CEC).
The article proposes a data-driven optimization solution for the dimensioning and design of configurations of fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles, based on an estimated demand for the need to perform aerial missions in a given region. The case study analyzed focuses on the application of this method for situations of monitoring of forest fires.
The article is available online, published under an open-access licence (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9177642), and also available on this page.
Reference:
[1] M.J. Sousa, A. Moutinho and M. Almeida. (2020). “Decentralized Distribution of UAV Fleets Based on Fuzzy Clustering for Demand-driven Aerial Services” in IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ–IEEE), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 2020, pp.1–8, doi: 10.1109/FUZZ48607.2020.9177642.
