Swarming Remote Piloted Aircraft Systemsfor Mosquito-borne Disease Research and Control

Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) are an emerging application area for many industries including surveillance, agriculture monitoring, and vector-borne disease control. With drastically lower costs and increasing performance and autonomy, future application evolution will more than likely include the use of the RPAS swarms. Several largely successful experiments in recent years, using off the shelf small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) have been conducted to address the long standing challenge of controlling and monitoring vector-borne diseases. In this paper we build on lessons learned from these prior efforts, and discuss ways in which swarms of sUAS could be deployed to place and monitor Autocidal Gravid Ovitraps for reducing the mosquito population.