scholarly journals Investigating Methods for Integrating Unmanned Aerial Systems in Search and Rescue Operations

Drones ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 38
Author(s):  
William T. Weldon ◽  
Joseph Hupy
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiments ◽  
First Responders ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Traditional Group ◽  
High Data ◽  
Missing Persons ◽  
Aerial Systems

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are increasingly being used in search and rescue (SAR) operations to assist in the discovery of missing persons. UAS are useful to first responders in SAR operations due to rapid deployment, high data volume, and high spatial resolution data collection capabilities. Relying on traditional manual interpretation methods to find a missing person in imagery data sets containing several hundred images is both challenging and time consuming. To better find small signs of missing persons in large UAS datasets, computer assisted interpretation methods have been developed. This article presents the results of an initial evaluation of a computer assisted interpretation method tested against manual methods in a simulated SAR operation. The evaluation performed focused on using resources available to first responders performing SAR operations, specifically: RGB data, volunteers, and a commercially available software program. Results from this field test were mixed, as the traditional group discovered more objects but required more time, in man hours, to discover the objects. Further field experiments, based on the capabilities of current first responder groups, should be conducted to determine to what extent computer assisted methods are useful in SAR operations.

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) in urban search and rescue-methodology, capacity development, and integration

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-38
Author(s):  
Ariel Braverman, BSc, RN, EMT-P
Keyword(s):  
Situational Awareness ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Urban Search And Rescue ◽  
Emergency Operations ◽  
Ventilation Ducts ◽  
Speed Up ◽  
Modernization Process ◽  
Roadless Areas ◽  
Aerial Systems

This paper’s purpose is to establish a methodological basis for using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in urban search and rescue (USAR). Modern USAR operations involve the location, rescue (extrication), and initial medical stabilization of individuals trapped in confined spaces or places with complicated access, eg, high structures. As a part of the ongoing modernization process, this paper explores possible options for UAV utilization in USAR operations. Today, UAV are already taking part in support emergency operations all over the world, and possible forms of operation for UAV in USAR environment can be in two primary modes: on-site and logistic chain. The on-site mode includes various capabilities of multilayer UAV array, mostly based on enhanced visual capabilities to create situational awareness and to speed-up search and rescue (SAR) process including using nanodrones for entering into confined places, ventilation ducts, and underground sewer channels can give to rescue teams’ opportunities to have eyes within ruins even before initial clearing process. Cargo drones will be able to bring equipment directly to high floors or roadless areas in comparison to wheeled transportation. The advantages of cargo drones operation are the ability of autonomous flight based on GPS or homing beacon and ability to provide logistics supports without involving additional personnel and vehicles and with no dependence on road conditions.

scholarly journals Strategies to Locate Lost Persons with Dementia: A Case Study of Ontario First Responders

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
N. A. Neubauer ◽  
A. Miguel-Cruz ◽  
L. Liu
Keyword(s):  
Practice Guideline ◽  
First Responders ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Police Services ◽  
Telephone Interviews ◽  
Missing Persons ◽  
Education And Awareness ◽  
Funding Information

Information on strategies and practices in the search of missing persons with dementia is inconsistent which creates challenges for first responders, such as police, when they choose appropriate search and rescue approaches. The purpose of this study was to describe current strategies among police services in Ontario. Telephone interviews with police were conducted. Questions included what strategies were used for locating missing persons living with dementia, and what gaps exist in search practices. Participants described they used high- and low-tech solutions in search and rescue. They identified gaps in education and awareness, proactive strategies, resources, and funding. Information collected from the interviews was used to develop a practice guideline for police in partnership with the Alzheimer Society of Ontario.

scholarly journals Deep Learning Based Wildfire Event Object Detection from 4K Aerial Images Acquired by UAS

AI ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 166-179 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ziyang Tang ◽  
Xiang Liu ◽  
Hanlin Chen ◽  
Joseph Hupy ◽  
Baijian Yang
Keyword(s):  
Deep Learning ◽  
High Resolution ◽  
Object Detection ◽  
Aerial Images ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Computer Assisted ◽  
Visual Interpretation ◽  
Two Phase ◽  
Aerial Systems ◽  
Spot Fires

Unmanned Aerial Systems, hereafter referred to as UAS, are of great use in hazard events such as wildfire due to their ability to provide high-resolution video imagery over areas deemed too dangerous for manned aircraft and ground crews. This aerial perspective allows for identification of ground-based hazards such as spot fires and fire lines, and to communicate this information with fire fighting crews. Current technology relies on visual interpretation of UAS imagery, with little to no computer-assisted automatic detection. With the help of big labeled data and the significant increase of computing power, deep learning has seen great successes on object detection with fixed patterns, such as people and vehicles. However, little has been done for objects, such as spot fires, with amorphous and irregular shapes. Additional challenges arise when data are collected via UAS as high-resolution aerial images or videos; an ample solution must provide reasonable accuracy with low delays. In this paper, we examined 4K ( 3840 × 2160 ) videos collected by UAS from a controlled burn and created a set of labeled video sets to be shared for public use. We introduce a coarse-to-fine framework to auto-detect wildfires that are sparse, small, and irregularly-shaped. The coarse detector adaptively selects the sub-regions that are likely to contain the objects of interest while the fine detector passes only the details of the sub-regions, rather than the entire 4K region, for further scrutiny. The proposed two-phase learning therefore greatly reduced time overhead and is capable of maintaining high accuracy. Compared against the real-time one-stage object backbone of YoloV3, the proposed methods improved the mean average precision(mAP) from 0 . 29 to 0 . 67 , with an average inference speed of 7.44 frames per second. Limitations and future work are discussed with regard to the design and the experiment results.

scholarly journals Multiple imputation of maritime search and rescue data at multiple missing patterns

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (6) ◽  
pp. e0252129
Author(s):  
Guobo Wang ◽  
Minglu Ma ◽  
Lili Jiang ◽  
Fengyun Chen ◽  
Liansheng Xu
Keyword(s):  
Multiple Imputation ◽  
Expectation Maximization ◽  
Data Augmentation ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Data Imputation ◽  
Imputation Methods ◽  
High Data ◽  
Data Missing ◽  
Maritime Search And Rescue

Based on the missing situation and actual needs of maritime search and rescue data, multiple imputation methods were used to construct complete data sets under different missing patterns. Probability density curves and overimputation diagnostics were used to explore the effects of multiple imputation. The results showed that the Data Augmentation (DA) algorithm had the characteristics of high operation efficiency and good imputation effect, but the algorithm was not suitable for data imputation when there was a high data missing rate. The EMB algorithm effectively restored the distribution of datasets with different data missing rates, and was less affected by the missing position; the EMB algorithm could obtain a good imputation effect even when there was a high data missing rate. Overimputation diagnostics could not only reflect the data imputation effect, but also show the correlation between different datasets, which was of great importance for deep data mining and imputation effect improvement. The Expectation-Maximization with Bootstrap (EMB) algorithm had a poor estimation effect on extreme data and failed to reflect the dataset’s variability characteristics.

scholarly journals Application of Miniaturized Sensors to Unmanned Aerial Systems, A New Pathway for the Survey of Polluted Areas: Preliminary Results

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (5) ◽  
pp. 471 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesca Fumian ◽  
Daniele Di Giovanni ◽  
Luca Martellucci ◽  
Riccardo Rossi ◽  
Pasqualino Gaudio
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiments ◽  
Risk Mitigation ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Integrated System ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Preliminary Results ◽  
Standoff Detection ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Aerial Systems

With the aim to have risk mitigation for people and first responders, active remote sensing standoff detection is a fruitful technology, both in case of accidental (natural or incidental) or intentional dispersion in the environment of volatile chemical substances. Nowadays, several laser-based methodologies could be put in place to perform extensive areal monitoring. The present study regards the proposal for a new system architecture derived from the integration of a low-cost laser-based network of detectors for pollutants interfaced with a more sophisticated layout mounted on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) able to identify the nature and the amount of a release. With this system set up, the drone will be activated by the alarm triggered by the laser-based network when anomalies are detected. The area will be explored by the drone with a more accurate set of sensors for identification to validate the detection of the network of Lidar systems and to sample the substance in the focus zone for subsequent analysis. In this work, methodologies and requirements for the standoff detection and the identification features chosen for this integrated system are described. The work aims at the definition of a new approach to the problem through the integration of different technologies and tools in the operative field experiments. Some preliminary results in support of the suitability of the integration hypothesis proposed are presented. This study gives rise to an integrated system to be furtherly tested in a real environment.

scholarly journals Assessment of the Emerging Landscape of Unmanned Aerial Systems in Trinidad and Tobago

2021 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-25
Author(s):  
Raid Al-Tahir ◽  
Giatri K. Lalla
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Planning ◽  
Trinidad And Tobago ◽  
Temporal Patterns ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Patterns ◽  
Qualitative And Quantitative ◽  
Aerial Systems

Interest in the civilian applications of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) has been growing worldwide, especially in government and commercial tasks such as surveillance, search and rescue, inspection of infrastructure, agriculture, mining, and mapping. Likewise, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T) has been witnessing a growing interest and application of commercial and non-commercial UAS operations. However, there is little assessment for the growth of the UAS market nor is there characterisation of UAS-based activities since the pertinent regulations established in 2016. This study seeks to formally identify the emerging UAS landscape in T&T during the period 2015 to 2019. As such, this study maps and characterises the spatial and temporal patterns of UAS distribution, then appraises the various categories for the existing operations. To achieve these goals, this study utilised qualitative and quantitative techniques of Geoinformatics. The intent for this study is to provide a perspective on the growth and the implications of the UAS industry in T&T, and to guide strategic planning among organisations with a stake in the emergence of UAS into civil airspace.

scholarly journals Unmanned aerial system–assisted wilderness search and rescue mission

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 155014771985071 ◽  
Author(s):  
Truong Duy Dinh ◽  
Rustam Pirmagomedov ◽  
Van Dai Pham ◽  
Aram A Ahmed ◽  
Ruslan Kirichek ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Mobile Phone ◽  
Access Point ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Unmanned Aerial System ◽  
Infrared Sensors ◽  
Rescue Mission ◽  
Time Required ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Aerial Systems

The success of the wilderness search and rescue missions is highly dependent on the time required to search for the lost person. The use of unmanned aerial systems may enhance search and rescue missions by supplying aerial support of the search process. There are unmanned aerial system–based solutions, which are capable of detecting the lost person using computer vision, infrared sensors, and detection of a mobile phone signal. The most pressing issue is reducing the cost of a search and rescue mission. Thus, to improve the efficiency of the resource utilization in wilderness search scenario, we consider the use of unmanned aerial system for both mobile phone detection and enabling Wi-Fi communication for the ground portion of the search and rescue team. Such an approach does not require specific additional tools (e.g. access point, specific user equipment) for communication, which reduces the cost and improves the scalability and coordination of the search and rescue mission. As a result, the article provides methods of searching the wilderness for a person using beacon signals from a mobile phone for two situations: when the distance to the source of emergency signals is unknown and when the distance is known. In addition, the voice transmission delay and the number of unmanned aircrafts are found to guaranty the quality of a call.

scholarly journals TOWARDS MORE EFFICIENT UAS DATA ACQUISITION: CAMERA AUTO MOUNT PIVOTING OBLIQUE SURVEY

2021 ◽  
Vol XLIII-B1-2021 ◽  
pp. 139-147
Author(s):  
I. S. G. Campos
Keyword(s):  
Field Experiments ◽  
Region Of Interest ◽  
Point Clouds ◽  
Ground Control ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Coverage Area ◽  
Check Points ◽  
Ground Control Station ◽  
Aerial Systems ◽  
Additional Hardware

Abstract. In this paper I present a new MAVLink command, enabling oblique aerial surveys, along with its implementation on the major open source flight stacks (PX4 and ArduPilot) and ground control station (QGroundControl). A key advantage of this approach is that it enables vehicles with a typical gimbaled camera to capture oblique photos in the same pass as nadir photos, without the need for heavier and more expensive alternatives that feature multiple cameras, at fixed angles in a rigid mount, thus are unsuitable for lightweight platforms. It also allows for flexibility in the configuration of the camera angles. The principle is quite simple, the command combines camera triggering with mount actuation in a synchronized cycle along the flight traverses through the region of interest. Oblique photos have also been shown to increase the accuracy of data and help filling holes in point clouds and related outputs of surveys with vertical components. To provide evidence of its benefits, I compare the results of several missions, in simulated and field experiments, flown with nadir only surveys versus oblique surveys, and different camera configurations. In both cases, ground control and check points were used to evaluate the accuracy of the surveys. The field experiments show the vehicle had to fly 44% less with the oblique survey to cover the same area as the nadir survey, which could translate in a 80% gain in efficiency in coverage area per flight. Furthermore, this new command is capable of enhancing functionality of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UASs) without any additional hardware, therefore its adoption should be straightforward.

scholarly journals Unmanned aerial systems in search and rescue applications with their path planning: a review

2021 ◽  
Vol 2115 (1) ◽  
pp. 012020
Author(s):  
V S Ajith ◽  
KG Jolly
Keyword(s):  
Path Planning ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Smart Farming ◽  
Potential Applications ◽  
Planning Methods ◽  
And Control ◽  
Aerial Systems ◽  
Border Surveillance

Abstract In recent days, the Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) is an emerging technology rapidly across many warfare’s and enable new civilian domains which include real-time monitoring, security, border surveillance, wildlife surveys, providing wireless coverage, weather monitoring, smart farming, surveying, search and rescue, products delivery, farming, and civil structure inspection. Initially, there were many challenges in the design and control of UAS as it lacks an onboard pilot for navigation. Now the condition is improved with the implementation of artificial intelligence techniques in path planning and their coordination. Unmanned Aerial vehicles (UAV) in UAS technology open up new potentials in a variety of fields. This paper presents a review of recent literature, starting with the introduction about the UAS and its types, components, developments, potential applications of UAV in search and rescue and the paper completes with a summary of the different path planning methods used in UAS.

scholarly journals Object Classification in Thermal Images using Convolutional Neural Networks for Search and Rescue Missions with Unmanned Aerial Systems

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Dahlin Rodin ◽  
Luciano Netto de Lima ◽  
Fabio Augusto de Alcantara Andrade ◽  
Diego Barreto Haddad ◽  
Tor Arne Johansen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Convolutional Neural Networks ◽  
Object Classification ◽  
Search And Rescue ◽  
Unmanned Aerial Systems ◽  
Thermal Images ◽  
Aerial Systems
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