Towards a Secure Modular Drone-Based Hardware Architecture for IoT-Enabled Traffic Safety in Intelligent Transportation Systems

Road safety remains a pressing global challenge, with speeding accounting for a significant proportion of traffic fatalities. While conventional speed enforcement systems, such as fixed cameras, have demonstrated limited effectiveness due to driver evasion tactics, and aerial patrols prove cost prohibitive for widespread implementation, emerging drone technologies offer new possibilities for dynamic traffic monitoring. This paper introduces an innovative Collaborative Highway Surveillance (CHS) system that addresses critical gaps in current enforcement methodologies. The proposed solution combines Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with a distributed network of groundbased wireless sensors to create an adaptive, closed-loop monitoring framework. Through intelligent coordination between speed-detecting reporting nodes (RNs) and relay-supporting helping nodes (HNs), the system dynamically directs UAVs to high-risk zones while optimizing resource allocation. A novel decision-making algorithm balances multiple operational factors, including violation frequency, UAV energy constraints, and geographic coverage requirements. Experimental results show that this integrated approach significantly improves response to violations and optimizes the selection of the most suitable drone to monitor the targeted area, while maintaining high operational efficiency. The architecture’s scalability and cost-effectiveness position it as a viable solution for next-generation intelligent transportation systems, offering substantial improvements over both static enforcement methods and isolated drone surveillance approaches.