Using camera-equipped mini-UAVS to support collaborative wilderness search and rescue teams

Summary form only given. Current practice in Wilderness Search and Rescue (WiSAR) can be viewed as a collaborative system designed to gather and analyze information to find missing persons in remote areas. The system consists of multiple parts - various tools for information management (maps, GPS, etc) distributed across personnel with different skills and responsibilities. Introducing a camera-equipped mini-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (mini-UAV) into WiSAR requires autonomy and information technology that itself is an integrated intelligent system to be used by a sub-team that must be integrated into the overall collaborative system. We review component technology that offloads or supplements many responsibilities to autonomous systems, and describe how autonomy and information are integrated into user interfaces to better support distributed search across time and space. The integrated system has been developed through a series of flight tests and field trials, and has also been demonstrated to Utah County Search and Rescue personnel. Searchers have used the technology to successfully locate a simulated missing person in a wilderness area.