Network Quality Feedback of Drone Telemetry and Imagery Upload in the CICLOPE Wildfire Protection System

Wildfires prevention/detection/fighting is a topic of increasing interest in recent years. Continuous network video streaming from remote surveillance towers to command centers has facilitated the early detection of wildfires. While the tower positions can be optimized with respect to optical and radio line of sight coverage using topography maps and raster simulations, network quality feedback becomes important for integrated mobile surveillance such as drones operating in remote areas and valleys. In this paper we present a visual network quality feedback solution that enables the drone operator to see immediately whether the images time-stamped with drone telemetry are being received correctly in the command center or not. This +/- icon in our custom smart controller application enables the operator to quickly become aware of network issues, adjust their position/router position and adapt the flight path accordingly when assessing fires