8 Multi-UAV Experiments: Application to Forest Fires J.R. Mart´ ınez-de-Dios 1 , Luis Merino 2 , An´ ıbal Ollero 1 , Luis M. Ribeiro 3 , and Xavier Viegas 3 1 Robotics, Vision and Control Group, University of Seville, Camino de los Descubrimientos s/n, 41092 Seville (Spain) {jdedios,aollero}@cartuja.us.es 2 Pablo de Olavide University, Crta. Utrera km. 1, 41013 Seville (Spain) lmercab@upo.es 3 Universidade de Coimbra, Apartado 10131, 3030 Coimbra (Portugal) luisr1@netcabo.pt,xavier.viegas@dem.uc.pt Summary. This Chapter presents the application of a multi-UAV system to forest fires. Particularly the experiments carried out with the COMETS system will be pre- sented. After the introduction and motivation, the UAVs, sensors and basic methods are presented. The third section deals with the general description of the fire detection, localization and monitoring. The next sections are devoted to the multi-UAV surveil- lance and fire alarm detection, fire observation and monitoring, and cooperative fire monitoring. These sections include short summaries of experiments carried out in the Lous˜a airfield and the Serra de Gestosa, near Coimbra (Portugal). 8.1 Introduction and Motivation Forest fire is an appropriate scenario for the demonstration of multi-UAV capa- bilities and performance. Forest fires are highly complex, non-structured envi- ronments, where the use of multiple sources of information at different locations is essential. Besides, fire evolution, which is very difficult to be predicted, and the presence of smoke occluding the images requires flexible re-planning and re- scheduling of UAVs, which makes this environment a suitable scenario for testing multi-UAV performance. Forest fires are a serious problem in many countries with high socioeconomic and environmental impacts and also with global consequences on greenhouse effect, desertification and climate change. In the last years, forest fire applica- tions have attracted significant R&D efforts and several new technologies and platforms have been researched and applied including satellite systems [10, 12], conventional piloted aircrafts and ground stations [2, 4, 13]. However, none of these technologies offer a solution to the problem. For in- stance, satellite-based systems often have low spatial and temporal resolutions. Although they are successfully applied in uniform and low populated areas, they are not appropriate for regions with intensive human activities such as the Eu- ropean Mediterranean basin. Ground stations and conventional piloted aircrafts A. Ollero and I. Maza (Eds.): Mult. Hetero. Unmanned Aerial Vehi., STAR 37, pp. 207–228, 2007. springerlink.com c  Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007