A SMALL GROUP OF STUDENTS FROM BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY think there is. They have been successful in their initial experiments using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones) as a subsitute for helicopters when doing aerial searches for missing or lost people in wildland areas. New Scientist magazine is reporting:
Michael Goodrich, Lanny Lin and colleagues at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, took a commercially available propeller-driven plane with a 1.2-metre wingspan, optimised for low-speed flight, and adapted it to both fly and search autonomously. Their idea is to provide SAR teams with a cheap alternative to helicopters, and one that can be used even in the perilous weather conditions that can ground helicopter-led rescue missions.
A similar-sized military UAV.
Without any piloting experience, an SAR operator can direct the plane to an area they want to search by clicking way-points on a computerised map, Goodrich says. The craft can also work autonomously to conduct search missions even if it is fed less specific information, such as a missing person’s last known position. To do so it uses computerised maps of the area to analyse the terrain and relies on probabilistic models to work out the missing person’s most likely routes.
Experienced SAR team leaders already read the landscape to determine in which areas to focus the search effort and in what order of priority, says Ron Zeeman, a seasoned member of Utah County Sheriff Search and Rescue. Zeeman helped Goodrich’s team develop the algorithms that allow their autonomous UAV to do the same.
In trials, operators using the craft have taken between 35 and 150 minutes to find a dummy dumped in the wilderness – fast enough to impress Zeeman. “If we could use it right now, I would,” he says.
The full report on the reseachers’ work will be presented at the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Atlanta, Georgia, this week. You can read the full story from the New Scientist HERE.
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