An Analysis of the Feasibility of Providing On-demand Ground Level Illumination From a Loitering Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

<p dir="ltr">As presented at IEEE International Workshop on Technologies for Defense and Security in Napoli, Italy, November 2024.<br><br><b>Abstract</b>: This paper presents an analysis of the feasibility of using Laser Excited Phosphor spotlights mounted on loitering unmanned aerial vehicles to provide on-demand illumination to a section of terrain at night. An extensive analysis of existing technology is conducted to select components for such a proposed system. Following this analysis, the deliverable illumination to the ground is determined based on environmental and technological limitations. It is found that a system built from `off-the-shelf' components could plausibly deliver upwards of 50 lx of illuminance on-demand to a user on the ground anywhere within a wide service area of multiple square kilometres.</p>