The Application of High Altitude Pseudo-Satellites for a Rapid Disaster Response

In case of emergency, a rapid first picture of the damaged area is required in order to have a better comprehension of the event and to deploy first aids. The continuous monitoring of the area affected by a disaster can also help to follow its evolution and to evaluate the consequences on population and man-made structures. The continuous monitoring is usually defined as persistence. In this paper, the deployment of HAPS (High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite) is proposed to monitor an emergency area right during the phase of disaster response, offering images in proximity and time persistence. Indeed, thanks to their proximity to the Earth surface (18–20 km of altitude) HAPS could provide images with greater spatial resolution than satellites and greater time resolution because of station-keeping or loiter capability on the desired area. Feasibility and effectiveness of this proposal is assessed by a simulation of a hypothetic HAPS usage in the realistic condition represented by the Central Italy earthquake in 2016.