Open Access

REVIEW

A Survey on Surveillance and Intelligent Secure Applications of UAVs

Hyunbum Kim^*

Department of Embedded Systems Engineering, Incheon National University, Incheon, Republic of Korea

* Corresponding Author: Hyunbum Kim. Email:

Computers, Materials & Continua 2026, 89(1), 7 https://doi.org/10.32604/cmc.2026.085773

Received 18 May 2026; Accepted 21 July 2026; Issue published 13 August 2026

Abstract

Recently, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, have attracted considerable research interest across diverse fields, encompassing public and private domains, industrial and academic fields, transportation areas, disaster and harsh environments, reliable delivery services, digital twin-enabled space, and smart cities. In particular, UAVs play a critical role in surveillance and security applications. In this paper, we investigate recent advances in surveillance and intelligent security applications using UAVs. This study covers a wide range of practical tasks and missions including intelligent traffic monitoring, disaster environments, forests and national parks, large-scale events and patrols in public circumstances. Also, we study security, privacy, and ethical issues in regard to UAV-enabled technologies. Then, we describe how UAVs can deliver rapid services and reliable performance, while also achieving efficient resource allocation across various applications through cooperative deployment.

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Keywords

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