Rescue Drones: Galician stakeholders have their saying

A new opportunity of innovation has been explored with the “DroneFinder” solution, which evolved through participatory processes in collaboration with public authorities.

DroneFinder solution arises from a challenge launched by the Galician Emergency Agency (AXEGA), in collaboration with Social Service Department, and has been developed by the joint venture composed by Aeromedia, Indra and ITG. The mission of this innovative solution is locating missing persons through the use of drones and Artificial Intelligence, which is already ready to be used and marketed.

DroneFinder aims to improve the quality life of citizens, specially the elderly, collective more affected in terms of missing person cases linked to different pathologies derived from cognitive impairments, neurodegenerative diseases or disabilities.

The objective of DroneFinder is to locate missing people in record time, since the first 48 hours of searching are vital for the success of this type of operations, especially with people who belong to the previously mentioned collective.

This technological solution has been developed to increase the efficiency in the search of missing persons by acting in the shortest possible time through the use of drones and geolocation systems, facilitating the work carried out by emergency services and bodies, optimizing both prevention and operations.

The solution has been tested in different scenarios, in a total of 11 location and search missions in collaboration with the Public Emergency Bodies.

DroneFinder uses specific location systems and computer vision algorithms capable of processing the images collected by drone cameras in real time to search for the missing persons and alert rescue teams.

The solution has been developed in the framework of the Civil UAVs Initiative, promoted by the Galician Innovation Agency (GAIN) and financed through ERDF Funds.