Ascertain privacy conservation and data security protection onboard small UAS

The potential application areas for small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) are massive. This paper takes into account the unstoppable trend toward the widespread use of sUAS for a large number of applications and reports on the needed privacy preserving measures and techniques. Specifically, this work researches the prospect of implementing object detection and blurring techniques on the actual sUAS hardware, such that the privacy of sensitive objects captured by the sUAS camera is preserved. The solution approach is to embed FPGA development boards with connected image sensors onboard the sUAS and implement MATLAB image processing algorithms into VHDL/Verilog code. Given the fact that the sUAS may run out of battery or crash during flight, and thus be captured by unauthorized persons, data encryption on the FPGA development boards needs also be studied for security purposes.