A Feasibility Study of Highway Traffic Monitoring using Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Traffic and emergency monitoring systems are essential constituents of Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) technologies, but the lack of traffic monitoring has become a primary weakness in providing prompt emergency services. Demonstrated in numerous military applications, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have great potentials as a part of ITS infrastructure for providing quick and real-time aerial video images of large surface area to the ground. Despite of obvious advantages of UAVs for traffic monitoring and many other civil applications, it is rare to encounter success stories of UAVs in civil application including transportation. The objective of this paper is to report the outcomes of research supported by the state agency in US to investigate the feasibility of integrating UAVs into urban highway traffic monitoring as a part of ITS infrastructure. These include current technical and regulatory issues, and possible suggestions for a future UAV system in civil applications.