Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) are slowing becoming e cient platforms that can be
applied in scienti c/commercial remote sensing applications. UAS may o er interesting
bene ts in terms of cost,
exibility, endurance, etc. On the other side, the complexity
of developing a full UAS-system is currently limiting its practical application. Currently,
only large organizations like NASA or NOAA have enough budget and infrastructure to
develop such applications.
Nowadays, UAS technology o ers feasible technical solutions for airframes,
ight control,
communications, and a wide set of multi-spectrum sensors. However, the generalized
development of remote sensing applications are still limited by the absence of systems that
support the development of the actual UAS sensing mission.
This paper introduces a
exible and reusable hardware/software architecture designed
to facilitate the development of UAS-based remote sensing applications. This
exibility is
organized into an user-parameterizable UAS Service Abstraction Layer (USAL). The USAL
de nes a collection of standard services are their interrelations as a basic starting point
for further development by users. Functionalities like enhanced
ight-plans, a mission
control engine, data storage, communications management, etc. are o ered. Additional
services can be included according to requirements but all existing services and inter-service
communication infrastructure can be exploited and tailored to speci c needs. The overall
USAL architecture is demonstrated by means of a wild land re remote sensing application
currently being developed to support re ghters in the Mediterranean area.
