Pumbaa

PUMBAA – Platform for Unmanned Measurement Systems for the Assessment of Airborne Agents

African swine fever and avian influenza are moving ever closer to Austria. During outbreaks, quarantine zones must be monitored and dead animals found quickly, as the virus remains infectious in carcasses for months. Existing methods such as human search lines, detection dogs, or drones with thermal cameras, however, are labor-intensive and fail for older carcasses. The project PUMBAA therefore develops a drone-based platform that locates carcasses by their decomposition gases while also detecting unauthorized persons in restricted zones. To this end, it combines gas sensors, deployable sensor nodes (“Digi-Noses”), AI-driven flight planning, coordinated drone swarms, and the fusion of gas, thermal, and visual data. The AIST research group is supporting colleagues of the partner research group, the Digital Media Lab, in this effort.

Duration

15.10.2026 – 14.10.2028

Partner

FH OÖ Digital Media Lab, Immotech OP GmbH (Dronetech)

Funding

Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG – Security Technologies & Solutions