Presentation and discussion of master's thesis
DECEMBER, 2023
In December 2023, Emanuel Pereira presented and discussed his dissertation under the supervision of Professor Miguel Bergano and Professor António Navarro, as part of the Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications, University of Aveiro, entitled “Ground System for LEO Radar in the C/X Bands“, on the work carried out as part of the Eye in the Sky project.
Reference:
[1] Emanuel Pereira, “Ground System for LEO Radar in the C/X Bands”, Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e Telecomunicações, Universidade de Aveiro, December 2023
Presentation and discussion of master's thesis
DECEMBER, 2023
In December 2023, Diogo Silva presented and discussed his dissertation, supervised by Professor Miguel Bergano and Professor António Navarro, as part of the Master’s Degree in Electronic Engineering and Telecommunications, University of Aveiro, entitled “Low-cost image communication systems solutions for satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles“, on the work carried out as part of the Eye in the Sky project.
Reference:
[1] Diogo Silva, “Low-cost image communication systems solutions for satellites and unmanned aerial vehicles”, Dissertação de Mestrado em Engenharia Electrónica e Telecomunicações, Universidade de Aveiro, December 2023.
Article published in the international peer-reviewed journal Remote Sensing (MDPI)
DECEMBER 20, 2023
On December 20th, 2023, the article “Wildfire Burnt Area Severity Classification from UAV-Based RGB and Multispectral Imagery” was published online in the international journal Remote Sensing (quartile 1), the result of the work of Tomás Simes during his Master’s Thesis in Mechanical Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico, under the supervision of Prof. Alexandra Moutinho and Dr. Luís Pádua (University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro).
Reference:
[1] Tomás Simes, Luís Pádua, Alexandra Moutinho, “Wildfire Burnt Area Severity Classification from UAV-Based RGB and Multispectral Imagery”, Remote Sensing, 16 (1), 30, 2024, https://doi.org/10.3390/rs16010030
Presentation and discussion of master's thesis
NOVEMBER, 2023
In November 2023, Mariana Vinhas presented and discussed her dissertation carried out under the supervision of professors Alexandra Moutinho and José Raul Azinheira within the scope of the Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, entitled “Experimental Identification of the Eye FX-61 Flying Wing“, regarding the experimental characterization of the aircraft developed within the scope of the Eye in the Sky project.
Reference:
[1] Mariana Vinhas, “Experimental Identification of the Eye FX-61 Flying Wing”, Master’s thesis, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, November 2023, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/meaer21/dissertacao/1128253548923460
Presentation and discussion of PhD thesis
JULY, 2023
In July 2023, Maria João Sousa presented and discussed her thesis carried out under the supervision of professors Alexandra Moutinho and Miguel Almeida within the scope of the PhD in Mechanical Engineering of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade de Lisboa, with the title “Cooperative Aerial Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Wildfire Detection and Monitoring Systems“, regarding the development of intelligent systems for fire detection and monitoring carried out within the scope of the project Eye in the Sky.
Reference:
[1] Maria João Sousa, “Cooperative Aerial Robotics and Artificial Intelligence for Wildfire Detection and Monitoring Systems”, PhD thesis in Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, July 2023.
Presentation and discussion of master's thesis
JUNE, 2023
Tomás Simes presented and discussed in June 2023 his dissertation carried out under the supervision of Prof. Alexandra Moutinho and Dr. Luís Pádua (University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro) within the scope of the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade de Lisboa, with the title “Wildfire Burnt Area Classification from Aerial Imagery”, on the work carried out in the framework of the Eye in the Sky project.
Reference:
[1] Tomás Simes, “Wildfire Burnt Area Classification from Aerial Imagery”, MSc thesis in Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, June 2023, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec21/dissertacao/846778572214592
E-Poster presented at IWFC’23 - 8th International Wildland Fire Conference
JUNE 16 to 19, 2023
The Eye in the Sky project was present at the 8th International Wildland Fire Conference – IWFC’23, which was held in Porto from 16 to 19th June 2023, and where an e-poster was presented under the title “Use of high-altitude balloons for wildfire management – a dedicated “satellite” for each
major fire event”.
Reference:
[1] A. Moutinho, M. Almeida, M.J. Sousa, D. Henriques, M. Bergano, “Use of high-altitude balloons for wildfire management – a dedicated “satellite” for each major fire event”, E-Poster, 8th International Wildland Fire Conference – IWFC’23, Porto, Portugal, june 2023, https://eposters.site/2023_iwfc/2023/07/12/0215/
Participation and publication of paper at Expat’23 - 6th Experiment@ International Conference
JUNE 05 to 07, 2023
The Eye in the Sky project was present at the 6th Experiment@ International Conference – Expat’23, which was held in Évora from 5 to 7th June 2023, and where Dário Silva presented the paper “Using high-altitude balloons for decision-support in emergency scenarios – a proof of concept on wildfire detection and monitoring”.
Reference:
[1] Alexandra Moutinho, Diogo Henriques, Nuno Ferreira, Dário Silva, Miguel Almeida, “Using high-altitude balloons for decision-support in emergency scenarios – a proof of concept on wildfire detection and monitoring”, 6th Experiment@ International Conference – Expat’23, Évora, Portugal, June 2023
Presentation and discussion of master's thesis
NOVEMBER, 2022
In November 2022, Raquel Rocha presented and discussed her dissertation carried out under the supervision of Prof. Alexandra Moutinho and Prof. José Raul Azinheira within the scope of the Master’s Degree in Aerospace Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade de Lisboa, with the title “Longitudinal control of a tailsitter UAV“, related to the work developed within the scope of the Eye in the Sky project.
Reference:
[1] Raquel Rocha, “Longitudinal control of a tailsitter UAV”, MSc dissertation in Aerospace Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, November 2022.
Eye in the Sky - Using High-Altitude Balloons for Decision Support in Wildfire Operations
OCTOBER, 2022
Subject: Publication of the book chapter
Book Chapter | Pages 181-186
https://doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_29
Abstract: The large fires that have occurred in recent years around the World have shown that the management of these events becomes much more difficult when the extension of the burnt area or the location of the fire fronts, among other fundamental information for those managing operations in theater, is not known. In addition, the large involvement of firefighting resources often challenges the operability of the communications system, sometimes making it dysfunctional or with limited operability. This was a reality seen in several large fires, from which we highlight the Fire of Pedrogão Grande that occurred in Portugal in June 2017.
Aware of the need to improve operational technology for fire monitoring, the Eye in the Sky Project has been developed. Our approach within this project is to design and develop an easy to deploy kit that can be launched from anywhere and fulfill these needs, providing quality real-time aerial imagery of the wildfires and guaranteeing emergency communications. The proposed solution consists of a high-altitude balloon that will carry a flying wing unmanned aerial vehicle with two different high-value types of payloads that meet these two specific functions of imagery collection in the visible and infrared ranges and communications repeater. The authors like to refer to the Eye in the Sky solution as a satellite dedicated to a specific fire.
Naturally, the development of such solution raises several challenges, particularly in terms of the operational functioning of this solution, the optimized use of the balloon/glider pair with the associated payload, the capture, automatic detection of the fire images and their georeferencing, and the communications system between the payload, the ground station and the users in the command center. The several challenges that have arisen in the development of this solution, as well as the current developments, are hereby exposed.
Reference:
[1] Moutinho, A.; Sousa, M. J.; Almeida, M.; Bergano, M.; Henriques, D.; Silva, Dário; Barbosa, D.; Nero, L.; Navarro, A. (2022) Eye in the Sky – Using High-Altitude Balloons for Decision Support in Wildfire Operations. In “Advances in Forest Fire research 2022”. ISBN:978-989-26-2297-2. Pp 181-186. http://dx.doi.org/10.14195/978-989-26-2298-9_29
Article published in international conference IAC-22 - 73rd International Astronautical Congress - Paris, France
SEPTEMBER 18, 2022
On September, 18 of 2022, an article authored by Diogo Silva and José Eduardo Silva [1], was presented in a peer-reviewed international conference, namely IAC-22 – 73rd International Astronautical Congress – Paris, France ( SYMPOSIUM E2 – Title: 50th STUDENT CONFERENCE, Part 1).
The article presents the development of an Earth observation system using a Raspberry PI as a data processing platform. The detection component consists of a custommade VHF quadrifilar helical antenna, a software-defined radio (SDR) USB Dongle and a Raspberry Pi (RPI). The system aims to implement a daily meteorological service publishing in social networks the atmosphere status activity over Portugal and much of the Iberian Peninsula, North Africa and its Atlantic adjacent area.
The article is available online, published under an open-access license: https://iafastro.directory/iac/paper/id/72201/summary/
Reference:
[1] Diogo Silva, José Silva, “PINOAA: AN INDEPENDENT DAILY EARTH OBSERVATION SERVICE USING A RASPBERY-PI DATA PROCESSING PLATFORM “, 73rd International Astronautical Congress 2022 50th STUDENT CONFERENCE (E2) Student Conference – Part 1 (1)
Presentation and publication of papers at the 2022 ICPR – 26th International Conference on Pattern Recognition
JUNE 21 to 25, 2022
The Eye in the Sky project was present at the 26th International Conference on Pattern Recognition –ICPR’22, which was held in Montreal, Canada from 21 to 25th August 2022. A special session titled “Image Analysis for Forest Environmental Monitoring” was co-organized by the Eye in the Sky Principal Investigator Alexandra Moutinho, in which the students António Nunes and Guilherme Antunes presented the papers “Flying Wing Wildfire Tracking Using Visual Servoing and Gimbal Control” [1] and “Georeferencing High-Altitude Aerial Imagery” [2], result of the respective MSc dissertations.
References:
[1] António Peres Nunes, Alexandra Moutinho, José Raul Azinheira, “Flying Wing Wildfire Tracking Using Visual Servoing and Gimbal Control”, in: Rousseau, JJ., Kapralos, B. (eds) Pattern Recognition, Computer Vision, and Image Processing. ICPR 2022 International Workshops and Challenges. ICPR 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13644. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37742-6_13
[2] Guilherme de Melo Antunes, Alexandra Moutinho, José Raul Azinheira, “Georeferencing High-Altitude Aerial Imagery”, in: Rousseau, JJ., Kapralos, B. (eds) Pattern Recognition, Computer Vision, and Image Processing. ICPR 2022 International Workshops and Challenges. ICPR 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13644. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-37742-6_18
Presentation and discussion of master's dissertations
JUNE, 2022
António Nunes and Guilherme Antunes presented and discussed in June 2022 their dissertations carried out under the supervision of Prof. Alexandra Moutinho and Prof. José Raul Azinheira within the scope of the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the Universidade de Lisboa, with the titles “Flying Wing Ground Target Tracking Using Visual Servoing and Gimbal Control ” [1] and “Georeferencing Aerial Imagery” [2], related to the work developed within the scope of the Eye in the Sky project.
References:
[1] António Nunes, “Flying Wing Ground Target Tracking Using Visual Servoing and Gimbal Control”, dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Mecânica, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, junho 2022, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec21/dissertacao/565303595503521
[2] G. Antunes, “Georeferencing Aerial Imagery”, dissertação de mestrado em Engenharia Mecânica, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, junho 2022, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec21/dissertacao/565303595503520
Participation in EGU General Assembly 2022
MAY 23 to 27, 2022
From the 23rd to the 27th of May, Maria João Sousa participated in the “EGU General Assembly 2022”, which took place in Vienna (Austria).
The annual event was organized by the European Geosciences Union.
The following publication was reached.
Reference:
[1] Sousa, M. J., Moutinho, A., and Almeida, M.: Building wildfire intelligence at the edge: bridging the gap from development to deployment, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-12432, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-12432
Presentation at the 5th National Meeting of Young Researchers of LAETA
MAY, 2022
The work “Decentralized smart sensor networks for forest fire detection and monitoring systems” developed within the scope of the Eye in the Sky project was presented by Alexandra Moutinho at the 5th National Meeting of Young Researchers of LAETA in May 2022.
Reference:
[1] M.J. Sousa, A. Moutinho, M. Almeida, “Decentralized Intelligent Sensor Networks for Wildfire Detection and Monitoring Systems”, 5th Meeting of the Young Researchers of LAETA, Lisbon, May 2022.
Presentation and publication at the 25th ESA Symposium on European Rocket and Balloon Programme and Related Research
MAY, 2022
The work “Leveraging high-altitude balloons and mobile robotics for real-time wildfire detection and monitoring systems” developed under the Eye in the Sky project was presented by Maria João Sousa at the 25th ESA Symposium on the European Rocket and Balloon Programme and Related Research in May 2022.
Reference:
[1] M.J. Sousa, A. Moutinho, M. Almeida, “Leveraging high-altitude balloons and mobile robotics for real-time wildfire detection and monitoring systems”, 25th ESA Symposium on European Rocket and Balloon Programme and Related Research, May 2022.
Presentation of scientific article in international conference
JULY 14, 2021
On July, 14th of 2021, an article authored by Pedro Messias, Maria João Sousa and Alexandra Moutinho [1], was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ-IEEE), a flagship annual international conference of the IEEE Computational Intelligence Society focused on fuzzy systems.
The paper presents a fire data annotation method that leverages semantic segmentation based on computer vision and optimization techniques, namely through superpixel aggregation and color features.
The approach introduces interpretable linguistic models that generate pixel-wise fire segmentation and annotations, which are explainable through simple fine-tunable rules that can support subsequent annotation validation by fire domain experts.
The article is available online ( https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9494421/ ), and also available on this page.
Link to the file on ResearchGate:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353723135_Color-based_Superpixel_Semantic_Segmentation_for_Fire_Data_Annotation
Reference:
[1] P. Messias, M. J. Sousa, and A. Moutinho. (2021). “Color-based Superpixel Semantic Segmentation for Fire Data Annotation” in IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ–IEEE), Luxembourg, Luxembourg, 2021, pp.1–7. IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/FUZZ45933.2021.9494421
Presentation and discussion of master's thesis
JANUARY, 2021
In January 2021, Pedro Messias presented and discussed his dissertation carried out under the supervision of Prof. Alexandra Moutinho and MSc. Maria João Sousa within the scope of the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, with the title “Superpixels Segmentation and Interpretable Fuzzy Models for Fire Data Annotation”, related to the work developed within the scope of the Eye in the Sky project.
Reference:
[1] P. Messias, “Superpixels Segmentation and Interpretable Fuzzy Models for Fire Data Annotation”, Master’s Thesis in Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, January 2021, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/283828618790593
Presentation and discussion of master's dissertations
JANUARY, 2021
In January 2021, Alexandra Pereira and Lin Yu presented and discussed their dissertations carried out under the supervision of Prof. Alexandra Moutinho and Prof. José Raul Azinheira within the scope of the Master’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering of the Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, with the titles “Target tracking using visual servoing: the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 case study” [1] and “Pre-flight and real-time path planning of a balloon launched flying wing” [2], related to the work carried out in the framework of the Eye in the Sky project.
References:
[1] A. Pereira, “Target tracking using visual servoing: the Parrot AR Drone 2.0 case study”, Master’s thesis in Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, January 2021, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/1691203502343827
[2] Lin Yu, “Pre-flight and real-time path planning of a balloon launched flying wing”, MSc dissertation in Mechanical Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, January 2021, https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/846778572212833
Article published in international journal Sensors (MDPI)
NOVEMBER 28, 2020
On November, 28 of 2020, an article authored by Maria João Sousa, Alexandra Moutinho and Miguel Almeida [1], was published in a peer-reviewed international journal, namely Sensors from the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI).
The article presents analyses of the sensing capabilities and the image processing pipelines of thermal imaging sensors for fire detection applications, paving the way for the development of autonomous systems for early warning and monitoring of fire events.
The article is available online, published under an open-access licence (https://www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/20/23/6803).
Reference:
[1] M.J. Sousa, A. Moutinho and M. Almeida, “Thermal Infrared Sensing for Near Real-Time Data-Driven Fire Detection and Monitoring Systems”, Sensors, 2020, 20(23):6803. doi: 10.3390/s20236803
Master thesis in the context of the Eye in the Sky project
October 13, 2020
In October 2020, Vasco Cepêda completed his master’s degree in Mechanical Engineering presenting his work entitled “Simulation of a latex balloon with a hydrogen generation system“.
This work was supervised by professors Alexandra Moutinho and Rui Costa Neto, being developed in the context of the Eye in the Sky Project.
This work can be accessed via the link: https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/1409728525632951
Reference:
[1] V. Cepêda (2020). “Simulation of a latex balloon with a hydrogen generation system”. Thesis to obtain the Master of Science Degree in Mechanical Engineering, in Instituto Superior Técnico from the University of Lisbon. Available at: https://fenix.tecnico.ulisboa.pt/cursos/memec/dissertacao/1409728525632951
Presentation of scientific article in international conference
AUGUST 27, 2020
On July, 22 of 2020, an article authored by Maria João Sousa, Alexandra Moutinho and Miguel Almeida [1], was presented at the World Congress on Computational Intelligence (WCCI), a flagship biennial international conference that joins conferences of the three branches of computational intelligence, namely: fuzzy systems (FUZZ-IEEE), neural networks (IJCNN) and evolutionary computation (CEC).
The article proposes a data-driven optimization solution for the dimensioning and design of configurations of fleets of unmanned aerial vehicles, based on an estimated demand for the need to perform aerial missions in a given region. The case study analyzed focuses on the application of this method for situations of monitoring of forest fires.
The article is available online, published under an open-access licence (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9177642), and also available on this page.
Reference:
[1] M.J. Sousa, A. Moutinho and M. Almeida. (2020). “Decentralized Distribution of UAV Fleets Based on Fuzzy Clustering for Demand-driven Aerial Services” in IEEE International Conference on Fuzzy Systems (FUZZ–IEEE), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 2020, pp.1–8, doi: 10.1109/FUZZ48607.2020.9177642.
The Final workshop of the Eye in the Sky Project was held on 15 December 2023. This is the video coverage of that event.