Real-time drone control and monitoring

XPRIZE Wildfire is an international XPRIZE Foundation competition to develop technology against wildfires. Barcelona Drone Center takes part as co-lead of the AeroWatch consortium, and the project I worked on was linked to that entry. The goal was a software solution to monitor, control and manage drones in real time.

I built, on my own, a program that could:

• —Control drones.
• —Monitor them in real time.
• —Manage the information and operations related to the drones.
• —Integrate external services through APIs.

I also helped with technical coordination with other participants and companies.

The team’s final result was a web app to view and monitor drones in real time. One scenario was wildfire detection, in which the system let a drone:

1. 01Receive information about a detected fire.
2. 02Fly autonomously to the area.
3. 03Carry out its programmed behaviour.
4. 04Return autonomously to base.

• —React for the web interface: component architecture, easy maintenance, a broad ecosystem and a good fit for dynamic, constantly updating interfaces.
• —Supabase for the database and related services: quick to set up, easy to integrate and agile during development, with a fairly modest data volume and tight deadlines.
• —APIs to integrate the systems and services of other companies in the project and coordinate the technical pieces.

Time. We had less than four months to:

• —Organise the team.
• —Define how it would work.
• —Coordinate the different parts.
• —Integrate the APIs.
• —Build the application.
• —Prepare the final result.

• —How to organise myself and prioritise against a very tight deadline.
• —How to build under pressure without losing sight of how each piece fits the whole.