Search and Rescue Build

[WildWill]

Hey calidave, you should try doing a couple SAR missions on a day off. Have some friends, maybe from the SAR team hide a couple EMS dummies somewhere where you might would think they'd need to do a search.

[CaliDave]

Hey calidave, you should try doing a couple SAR missions on a day off. Have some friends, maybe from the SAR team hide a couple EMS dummies somewhere where you might would think they'd need to do a search.

Hey Will, yeah good idea, I'm working on some demos to setup for them including some primers already on video. I don't have as many willing volunteers when I need to help let me find them, but I can resort to my childhood tactic of stuffing my clothes to make a dummy that I can lay out in the field somewhere. Of course I'll know where it is, but use it to feature what I can see from certain altitudes to determine best practices in a search.

Once I have some convincing demos ready then I'll present them to the team. ;-)

First I'm gonna see how they feel with me just bringing my GoPros out the to overnight training we have coming up and documenting some of that. I'd like to document much of the experience if I can on all things SAR. ;-)

[Grips]

Calidave: It certainly seems like your well-ahead of me with FPV gear. I was watching some of the team echelon videos. I was wondering about the horizontal stabilizers. What are you using there? Is it cf rod? Have any pics of said tail setup?

Man, do I ever wish that I lived in a more flat area.. the videos are sick flat. I live in the polar opposite of this.

[PDXDave]

Some of this has already been addressed and some hasn't, so I'll just barf it all out here ask your forgiveness for any repetition...

I've spent many years training SAR, law enforcement, and other first responders how to use airborne imaging systems for just this purpose, and a couple of things stand out as far as tactical deployment are concerned (in no particular order of importance):
- I can't emphasize strongly enough the importance of having one person fly the aircraft and another "fly" the camera. The workload can get really high really fast, especially in the mountains.
- Communication becomes vital. Specifically, if the camera operator finds someone on the ground they have to be able to tell the pilot where to orbit, then relay the information to ground search crews quickly. The aircraft's lat/long will get you in the neighborhood, but think about precedures that can simplify the communication of that information. In gimbaled systems used by ALE, NG, etc, they have azimuth and elevation symbology to help communicate that in the cockpit plus all sorts of other gizmos to help tell people on the ground where you're looking. You won't have that (I assume) so some sort of communication protocol can help (e.g., "camera's looking 80 degrees left and 30 degrees down" or something like that -- the point is to have the protocol figured out and practiced before you get in the air).
- Practice your search patterns early and often. I know this sounds obvious, but I've seen aircrews miss victims because they didn't fly the right pattern for the conditions.
- Once you chose your camera(s), do some tests to determine how far away you can actually detect a person (altitude and slant range), cut that range by 30% safety margin, and use that to determine leg spacing. People are usually surprised by how short those distances are. And make it easy the first couple of times. Lay your "victim" out on a baseball diamond or a big park, not out in the woods, then work the altitude and slant angle up/down, out/back to come up with a combination that works best when actually finding the target isn't an issue.

I realize that I'm probably telling you things you already know, but I was excited by finally being able to talk about something I know on the Lab instead of just asking noob questions all the time. Hope it helps.

[Grips]

Dave: Thanks for the response. I originally intended to have two operators, one for pilot and one for secondary camera system operation. all discussion is great as we need to develop more protocols/ideas for UAV SAR use outside of the commercial realm.

[Drednox]

There's a company that makes a retractable ptz turret camera called a btc-40. http://www.microuav.com/btc40
I called them for pricing over a year ago. About 3 grand for the basic system. I also asked them if they would sell me just the housing and mechanism but they wouldn't. Company called procerus set this thing up with a kestrel autopilot and target tracking software. Its the cat's ass if you got the dough for it.

[CenTexFlyer]

Hey guys,

The book really is finished. It's titled "First to Deploy - Unmanned Aircraft Use for SAR & Law Enforcement". The editing is killing me because it so time consuming. I've had the content done for a month now! Since you are looking into a winged platform, I think I can throw in a few more suggestions to help.

1. Durable is a must! Do away with any superfluous gear and streamline in every area. Your airframe MUST be able to withstand a beating. If you can't land it on rocks, trees, or brambles, then don't take it. Most gimbals won't survive.
2. Your flying skills must be well developed. You will be asked to fly out of areas that most hobbyist would run away from - screaming.
3. Back packable is a good thing. You may have to pack in to a search area, assemble and fly. We have ridden in on 4 wheelers, quads, and hiked to mountain tops.
4. Your credo in the field : "Two is one and one is none". Meaning if you don't have a back up airframe or replacement parts - your day can end pretty quickly.
5. You should look into getting NIMS (National Incindent Management System) training. You can get the first few levels done for free on line. Any search of some size will use these protocols so you should be familiar as well.

Video resolution is likely not going to serve you well for searching unless you fly 50-100AGL. Then it will take you all day to do a square mile.
A GoPro is no more than 5MP and it is a step up but you still need to fly pretty low. We are currently using 10MP Lumix DMC-LX3's at 400' AGL and they pixelate when you drill down into them, but give you enough resolution to find a child size object. You can FPV with video no problem but after that, it's pretty useless for searching.

Example : Myron and I set up the recent SAR fly in at our training field. We put six "targets" out of varying degree of difficulty for people to look for with their systems. The search area was about 250 acres. Most all systems were video or GoPro based. The easiest target was a wing in some tall grass only 100 feet away from the launch area. The most found by anyone was three. The resolution was just not good enough for meaningful searches. The big advantage to the aerial view is being able to look straight down or nadir - not oblique. You can "see" into fairly thick canopy straight down, but you won't see a thing past 30 degree or slow of slant range. Even very tall grass can be a challenge for foot searchers. In evidence searches I tell foot searchers that if they cannot see the feet of the person next to them, they could miss something. We have had horseback searchers pass within 20 feet of a body in thick brush and not detect them. The aircraft found it from above looking straight down.

FLIR is OK, but recognize that your max resolution right now is 640 X 480 on the higher end cams, and 320 X 240 on the cheaper (!) cams. Again, you must be low to pick up anything useful and most cameras are only sensitive out to a 1000' slant range. You can pick up a nice hot blob if you have enough temperature differential, but right now it is 104 degrees here in Texas and it doesn't do much for you unless you can program the bandwidth of your camera ($$$).

You can take a look at some of the imagery we've used on www.rpsearchservices.org

Gene

[spitfire_doug]

Had a quick read of this thread, thought you might like this,


View this video on YouTube

Airframe is a Hugin (2m v-tail variant). I put an acrylic dome on the front underside and installed pan-tilt. Yes the dome is dirty in this video but when its clean you cant even tell its there. And yes I have a few video issues at the moment. Still, this airframe would nearly do the trick, flies for 40min comfortably on 2x 5000mah 4s. Will carry more, flies pretty nice, not too jumpy, has marginal yaw stability making C/G difficult to get back. VERY tail heavy model, I need all the 10000mah up front for correct C/G.

If you want more info i can give.

Regards

Doug

[Grips]

What sort of an aerial/winged platform might you recommend?

Hey guys,

The book really is finished. It's titled "First to Deploy - Unmanned Aircraft Use for SAR & Law Enforcement". The editing is killing me because it so time consuming. I've had the content done for a month now! Since you are looking into a winged platform, I think I can throw in a few more suggestions to help.

1. Durable is a must! Do away with any superfluous gear and streamline in every area. Your airframe MUST be able to withstand a beating. If you can't land it on rocks, trees, or brambles, then don't take it. Most gimbals won't survive.
2. Your flying skills must be well developed. You will be asked to fly out of areas that most hobbyist would run away from - screaming.
3. Back packable is a good thing. You may have to pack in to a search area, assemble and fly. We have ridden in on 4 wheelers, quads, and hiked to mountain tops.
4. Your credo in the field : "Two is one and one is none". Meaning if you don't have a back up airframe or replacement parts - your day can end pretty quickly.
5. You should look into getting NIMS (National Incindent Management System) training. You can get the first few levels done for free on line. Any search of some size will use these protocols so you should be familiar as well.

Video resolution is likely not going to serve you well for searching unless you fly 50-100AGL. Then it will take you all day to do a square mile.
A GoPro is no more than 5MP and it is a step up but you still need to fly pretty low. We are currently using 10MP Lumix DMC-LX3's at 400' AGL and they pixelate when you drill down into them, but give you enough resolution to find a child size object. You can FPV with video no problem but after that, it's pretty useless for searching.

Example : Myron and I set up the recent SAR fly in at our training field. We put six "targets" out of varying degree of difficulty for people to look for with their systems. The search area was about 250 acres. Most all systems were video or GoPro based. The easiest target was a wing in some tall grass only 100 feet away from the launch area. The most found by anyone was three. The resolution was just not good enough for meaningful searches. The big advantage to the aerial view is being able to look straight down or nadir - not oblique. You can "see" into fairly thick canopy straight down, but you won't see a thing past 30 degree or slow of slant range. Even very tall grass can be a challenge for foot searchers. In evidence searches I tell foot searchers that if they cannot see the feet of the person next to them, they could miss something. We have had horseback searchers pass within 20 feet of a body in thick brush and not detect them. The aircraft found it from above looking straight down.

FLIR is OK, but recognize that your max resolution right now is 640 X 480 on the higher end cams, and 320 X 240 on the cheaper (!) cams. Again, you must be low to pick up anything useful and most cameras are only sensitive out to a 1000' slant range. You can pick up a nice hot blob if you have enough temperature differential, but right now it is 104 degrees here in Texas and it doesn't do much for you unless you can program the bandwidth of your camera ($$$).

You can take a look at some of the imagery we've used on www.rpsearchservices.org

Gene

[volto]

Had a quick read of this thread, thought you might like this,


View this video on YouTube

Airframe is a Hugin (2m v-tail variant). I put an acrylic dome on the front underside and installed pan-tilt. Yes the dome is dirty in this video but when its clean you cant even tell its there. And yes I have a few video issues at the moment. Still, this airframe would nearly do the trick, flies for 40min comfortably on 2x 5000mah 4s. Will carry more, flies pretty nice, not too jumpy, has marginal yaw stability making C/G difficult to get back. VERY tail heavy model, I need all the 10000mah up front for correct C/G.

If you want more info i can give.

Regards

Doug

Video is private.