Victim Detection System Using Autonomous UAV Flight and Data Analysis based on Multiple Beacon Radio Sensing

In recent years, the number of people who get lost in a mountainous area due to natural disaster and bad weather is increasing. In order to quickly detect the location of the victims when the accident is occurred, a beacon device for climbers has been utilized so far. However, range of the radio wave transmitted from the beacon device is very short, hence dangerous situations might occur on the rescue team when they get in to the mountainous area in order to search for victims.Therefore, in this research, we develop a new system which can detect victim's location and condition by utilizing UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). In the proposed system, after a rescuer starts to control the UAV by using a control application of a smartphone, the UAV automatically moves to a location where the accident is occurred, and searches the location of victim by moving to the direction where a radio wave from the beacon can be measured strongly. Furthermore, the UAV identifies a condition of the victim by measuring and analyzing the received signal strength of radio waves transmitted from the beacon device on multiple frequency bands which has different propagation characteristics. For example, a radio wave of the 429MHz frequency bands is easily absorbed by moisture compared with the 920MHz bands. These mean that the received signal strength of radio waves of the 429MHz band is lower than that of the 920MHz band when the beacon is covered by snow. By utilizing these propagation characteristics, we attempt to determine the condition of the victim.