# Flying Watchdog-Based Guard Patrol with Check Point Data Verification
## 5 Conclusions  
This research presents an innovative vision-based flying watchdog system designed to elevate the capabilities of human security-based guard patrol systems. This system's ability to identify and verify checkpoints under challenging lighting conditions and its real-time data transmission capabilities significantly contribute to security technology. It is important to note some limitations in our research. Firstly, our camera sensing position is fixed 45 downward, and the search pattern only forms a circular area with a radius of approximately 1 m from the waypoint. Despite these constraints, our light detection results reveal that a single white LED with specifications of 0.06 A, 5 volts, and an intensity ranging from 27 to 70 lux can achieve the longest detection distance, reaching up to 20 m, even in low-light conditions (9 lux) to standard lighting (390 lux). In contrast, other colors, such as blue, red, and purple lights, exhibit shorter detection distances. Notably, yellow light cannot be detected due to its proximity to white on the color spectrum. Additionally, we observed that the square shape outperforms the pentagon and triangle patterns regarding detection distance despite the pentagon having more LED strips and a larger size. Our research findings demonstrate the feasibility of utilizing LEDs with different colors and patterns for marker detection, particularly in scenarios where drone vision is deployed under favorable lighting conditions. We successfully implemented the OpenCV algorithm, incorporating thresholding and contouring with edge and color detection, effectively detecting and classifying objects. Furthermore, the Gaussian kernel algorithm proved effective in image smoothing. With an adaptive algorithm, the laser-based data transmission process exhibited robust performance, unaffected by variations in the distance between the drone and the PGP, as well as changes in beam intensity and divergence. Data transmission remained efficient, with 8-bit data packets utilized to expedite the process. In practical applications, when the transmitted data match the database on the detector, it triggers data upload to the cloud, thereby serving as part of the check-in verification process.  
Figure 16: Laser data transfer: (**a**) transmitter data; (**b**) receiver data.  
This study primarily focuses on low-speed data communication, currently lacking both encoders and decoders. Furthermore, the vision camera's orientation remains stationary, pointing downward. Consequently, forthcoming research initiatives should aim to enhance the PGP search method. Prospective improvements may encompass transitioning from a fixed camera angle to a dynamic one and incorporating sophisticated detection algorithms like YOLO to evaluate confidence levels. Furthermore, augmenting the laser-based data transmission technique by introducing data encoding, expanding capacity, and accelerating transmission speed could unlock fresh opportunities for advancing this groundbreaking security technology.  
Conceptualization, E.K.; methodology, A.S., A.J. and E.K.; software, A.J. and Y.Z.; validation, E.K.; formal analysis, A.J., Y.Z. and E.K; investigation, E.K. and A.S.; resources, A.S. and A.J.; data curation, A.J., E.K. and A.S.; writing--original draft, A.S. and E.K.; writing--review and editing, E.K., A.S., A.J. and Y.Z. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This research received no external funding.  
Not applicable.  
The authors acknowledge the continued support from Macquarie University through the Computing and Engineering Faculty for providing the resources and space required for this research. We also acknowledge the technical staff at Macquarie for providing support and hardware tools required for prototyping.  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.