Autonomous Drone for Social Distancing Surveillance

Drones being capable of doing things that are not even remotely possible for a human have a major role to play in our society. These unmanned aerial vehicles have endless applications in various fields such as photography, surveillance, farming and communication systems. These drones due to such extraordinary capabilities pose a serious threat to privacy of the general population. However in desperate situations privacy is overtaken by safety and security in terms of priority. In this project the application of unmanned aerial vehicles in the surveillance field are explored while walking the thin line between invasion of privacy and safety concerns. An autonomous drone with a camera module with an intelligent scene analysis model is used to automate the surveillance of vast areas in a single go while keeping maintenance cheap and operability easy. The primary focus would be to surveil the overall population for honouring the “social distancing protocols” and then based on the results, a tool with a wider application in human behaviour analysis is to be developed.

I. Introduction

COVID-19, the global pandemic which has led to more than 2.2 million deaths and has infected more than 103 million people worldwide, makes us re-analyse how national governments, organizations and people around the globe can co-exist with minimal or without physical interaction. These kinds of situations call for interception of various authorities, ultimately increasing the risk of spreading the virus i.e. by sending officials to analyse the situation. In some emergency situations this might not be possible (places of protest, mob gathering, crowds at shops etc.) In these situations a portable and inexpensive solution is required to help maintain social distancing norms. This is where a fully autonomous drone with video transmission capabilities is required. Solutions available in the market are not inexpensive and are not modular at all. Hence there is a need for a cheaper solution with necessary features for crowd surveillance which can detect problems quickly and efficiently. Advancement can be induced by engaging a synchronized and a distributed system of easy-to-use Drones specialized to detect people and analyse the conditions of social distancing norms in the affected area. Using a wide range of sensors, we can bring efficiency to this process increasing detection accuracy significantly with digital processing and GPS back-up. These Drones are compact, consume low power and easy to use. These Drones are a moderate one-time investment and are meant to last for years.