Collaborative multirotors for search and rescue.

Its not often a  project excites me from the multirotor world. This one does.  Work being undertaken at the Lakeside Labs Austria has great potential. Their recently released video which I can’t believe has only had 34 views to date shows multiple air frames mapping an area whilst flying in formation.

The flight path that they take has been thought about in relationship to what they have to map. A boundary for height and distance that they can’t exceed. The task separated out to give a bit of the job to each unit. All fairly standard stuff apart from three aircraft tasking.

The bit that will appeal to all  unmanned aircraft operators  is the real time display of images coming down from the platforms and post production tools. Visible and multispectral images merged, 3D modelling to help with the 2D stitching.

In a natural disaster with a trained team this work could provide close to real time wide area imagery for gold commanders to make decisions. The mapped area only getting bigger as flights continue. Rescue helicopters are generally stretched in times of emergency let this system find people on roofs.

Watch this story spin out to big brother and all the nasty things whilst quietly building into a glimpse of the future of fire and rescue operations. They are bringing together all of the bits into a single useful tool.

Add in imagery from helmet cameras and rovers to a constantly constructed data set of a place that now looks nothing like the printed map. Exciting times.