Search

At present, in a search and rescue (SAR) operation with an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), a camera-based function would be most promising. The camera-based function provides useful visual information via an aerial video, but it may be insufficient for the SAR operation due to some limitations, e.g., a missing person exists out of the shooting range. In the paper, in addition to the camera-based function, we propose to utilize an aerial Wi-Fi sensing function (Wi-SF) to enhance the effectiveness of a SAR operation. Wi-SF captures Wi-Fi beacons broadcast from Wi-Fi terminals, e.g., smartphone and handheld game console, which a missing person carries, and it displays the spots where Wi-SF captured the Wi-Fi beacons. Then, the information helps practitioners to estimate a possible area where the person exists. Experimental results showed that Wi-SF could capture Wi-Fi beacons at the altitude of 100 m in an open space, while the sensing performance at a house and in a debris area was limited to the altitude of below 30 m. Also, we demonstrated that practitioners could estimate the possible area of a missing person in a woods through the Wi-Fi sensing information in a mock SAR operation trial.

This paper designs and creates an Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) operation drill to acquire fundamental skills for executing a smooth and safe UAV operation at a disaster spot. The establishment of operation methods is indispensable to enable full utilization of new technologies such as UAV. In this paper, after organizing the requirements for UAV operation, we then propose a series of procedures as a drill, including fundamental skills. The drill contributes to executing the smooth and safe UAV operation and will be a reference model for creating other UAV operations.