Optimizing Search and Rescue efforts to help finding Lost Persons with Dementia Using Drones

Dr Hanna proposed and utilized drones for public safety, specifically in Search and Rescue (SAR) operations involving Lost Persons Living with Dementia (LPLWD). When it comes to

saving lives, there are many human factors associated with drone operations that impact the

performance of expert human SAR teams that could be improved through some form of automation.

These include familiarity with the search location and tasks associated with piloting and

search/flight management during SAR operations. It also involves understanding the behaviour of the lost person. An LPLWD may not be interested in assisting in their rescue as they may not know they are lost. 

Dr. Hanna presented an interdisciplinary approach focused on developing a people-finding method to identify high-probability locations where an LPLWD might be found through informed, behaviour-based analysis of the search location, and then developing an algorithm to fly a drone to the vicinity of these high-probability locations.

The algorithm was validated through life field testing alongside police services in Ontario. The results from both the data collection process from the International Search and Rescue Incident Database (ISRID) and the field tests indicated that there were efficiencies in using the drone, in terms of timing, which enhanced the probability of finding the lost person alive. An informed process involving automated approaches using R software to scrub and augment the data by adding any missing values in the dataset helped clarify the behaviour of the lost person and determine what significant variables enhanced their survivability. Linear regression was utilized to acquire the correlations between the numeric values in the database. Logistic regression and classification models were used to investigate survivability. 

This research work will help to address the possibility of automating certain types of SAR. The outcome will also inform the design of use cases that could be used in various test environments and for training SAR teams.