Airborne Camera System for Real-Time Applications - Support of a National Civil Protection Exercise

Abstract

In the VABENE++ project of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), powerful tools are being developed to aid public authorities and organizations with security responsibilities as well as traffic authorities when dealing with disasters and large public events. One focus lies on the acquisition of high resolution aerial imagery, its fully automatic processing, analysis and near real-time provision to decision makers in emergency situations. For this purpose a camera system was developed to be operated from a helicopter with light-weight processing units and microwave link for fast data transfer. In order to meet end-users’ requirements DLR works close together with the German Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) within this project. One task of BBK is to establish, maintain and train the German Medical Task Force (MTF), which gets deployed nationwide in case of large-scale disasters. In October 2014, several units of the MTF were deployed for the first time in the framework of a national civil protection exercise in Brandenburg. The VABENE++ team joined the exercise and provided near real-time aerial imagery, videos and derived traffic information to support the direction of the MTF and to identify needs for further improvements and developments. In this contribution the authors introduce the new airborne camera system together with its near real-time processing components and share experiences gained during the national civil protection exercise.