SEARCH & RESCUEA Drone with Ears
When a region is hit by a natural disaster, searching for survivors is complex work as buildings and roads may be damaged. The use of drones equipped with daylight cameras and thermal imaging cameras is therefore becoming increasingly widespread – except that if victims are trapped under rubble, they cannot be seen by these imaging sensors. Equipping drones with acoustic sensors allows rescue teams to identify and locate cries for help, clapping, or knocking signals.
When a natural disaster such as an earthquake occurs, every minute counts. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are often used to assist the search for survivors as they can provide an initial overview of difficult-to-reach areas and help to detect victims — provided they are visible. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Communication, Information Processing and Ergonomics (FKIE) are now looking to close a gap in the provision of disaster management services with a new technology: In the future, drones equipped with microphone arrays will be able to precisely locate cries for help and other acoustic signals from victims from the air and supply information about their location to the rescue teams. This significantly increases the chances of a rapid rescue for victims who cannot be spotted by camera.
Floods in Libya, Greece and Slovenia, fires in Hawaii and Tenerife, earthquakes in Turkey and Morocco — when a region is hit by a natural disaster, every minute counts in the efforts to save victims. But searching for survivors is complex work as buildings and roads may be damaged and large areas cut off. The use of drones equipped with daylight cameras and thermal imaging cameras is therefore becoming increasingly widespread — they can quickly fly over large areas of ruined infrastructure, locate victims and speed up the response of the rescue teams. The problem is that victims trapped under rubble cannot be seen by these imaging sensors, and factors such as thick smoke, fog or darkness also limit the effectiveness of the cameras. For scenarios such as these, researchers at Fraunhofer FKIE are working on a solution which enables acoustic sensors to be added to the cameras: LUCY — short for Listening system Using a Crow’s nest arraY — is a piece of technology developed by FKIE scientist Macarena Varela in collaboration with colleagues and research group leader Dr. Marc Oispuu to save the lives of people buried in rubble or trapped by fires.
