DJI M30T: manos a la obra en búsqueda y rescate con dron

¿Sabía que los drones se utilizan actualmente en Búsqueda y salvamento situaciones? Bueno, hoy tenemos un experto, Kyle Nordfors de Búsqueda y Rescate del Condado de Weber en Utahpara hablar de esto.

I’m going to show you some real world scenarios and also teach you some tips and tricks to help you get started in this field.

We’re going to pick his brain and also put him to the test, so let’s get to it.

Encontrar excursionistas perdidos

Well, look at Jason with his little Hello Kitty backpack! A year ago we were actually right here with this team trying to find some lost hikers, and we made kind of a game out of it. We want to put you to the test and see how you would approach it. From your world, we don’t have any experience, but you’re going to give us some tips on how a professional would do this.

I’ve got some ideas and some tips to help everybody out.

Te dimos a elegir entre varios drones en nuestra oficina, pero ninguno era lo suficientemente bueno, así que te trajiste el tuyo, ¿verdad? Trajiste el DJI Matrice 30. I have a lot of questions. Number one, how dare you? What’s so good about the Matrice 30?

Ventajas del dron DJI Matrice 30

What I really like about the DJI Matrice 30 is that it seems to fit more roles than any other drone. It’s the most complete drone that’s out there that’s available to you.

A lot of these departments have a smaller drone like the Mavic 3 Thermal, maybe even the Mavic 2 Enterprise like you started with.

What’s the disadvantage of having something a little bit smaller like this over the Matrice 30, for example?

Well, there’s the right tool for every job. The Mavic 3 Thermal is a fantastic platform – it’s very compact and it has a great flight time. It does have a very high resolution thermal and also comes with a little bit of a zoom to it.

The Matrice 30 is a little bit bigger, it’s not as packable, but the zoom camera on that one is a lot more powerful. It also comes with a Laser Rangefinder, so let’s assume that you find your patients out on a ledge or something. You can point that laser at your patients and get their actual coordinates, whereas you can’t do that with the DJI Mavic 3 Térmico.

Identificación de posibles amenazas

La última vez que hicimos esto, Bo estaba en realidad por allí y tenía la peor ubicación absoluta - ¡un poco impreciso aquí! Así que esta vez le dimos un lugar mucho más sencillo para ir de excursión.

But before we even take off, we need to identify the potential threats that might be in this area and how we’re going to mitigate them. We hiked up here a little bit higher which I think is a good thing, and it gets us away from the trees and the power lines. The wind’s blowing a little bit, it’s up to maybe about 20 knots, so we need to take that into consideration – that’s going to lower our overall flight time.

Así que subimos aquí porque queríamos tener una mejor visión, pero ¿es esto lo que harías en la vida real?

In this scenario right here, where we know that our patient isn’t going to be too terribly far away, I would launch from the parking lot because it’s good to have good solid footing on flat ground – it’s better for takeoffs and landings. Because we’re on a slant right here, it’s going to make it pretty difficult to actually take off and land. So we’re going to do this by hand – clear props!

Mantener la línea visual

I think I hear the drone, I think they just took off. I’m pretty hopeful that Kyle’s going to find me pretty quick.

Tengo entendido que usted opera casi siempre en condiciones de línea visual, ¿verdad? Sí, es imprescindible mantener la línea de visión. Hay ciertas exenciones que están disponibles para obtener alivio de esa restricción, sin embargo para nosotros en nuestro terreno montañoso, si voláramos el avión no tripulado más allá de nuestra línea de visión, como a través de un cañón de caja o algo así, lo más probable es que perderíamos la señal antes de perder cualquier otra capacidad.

Since we identified that he’s just going to be on the other side of the ridge, we’re looking for anything that might pop out in the snow, any type of emission differences.

Utilización de la termografía

So you’re in white hot – this is black hot. You’re looking for something black that may be moving, and then we can also toss into side by side to see if we can catch movement on either one.

Okay, where’s your drone? Right over there – I hear the drone super close right above me. Let’s see if we can see it… there it is! Yeah, I found him!

While on the split screen comparing and contrasting the two different sides, one of the reasons why I was able to find him is because he’s standing in the snowy area, which the thermal gives us a higher contrast. So understanding and using both tools appropriately to be able to find them is very useful.

If I’m lost then being not in the shadow would probably be better in this case, so if you get lost, that’s what you do – you stay on top of the snow, not in the shadow. Don’t hide if you’re going to get lost, understand your typography.

El requisito del baile del pollo

Oye Bo, cada vez que te encuentran, tienes que hacer el baile del pollo.

¿Hablas en serio?

Yeah, that’s the rule. I don’t make up the rules, man!

Oh, so here I can point out real quick as he’s doing his chicken dance – if we put the Laser Rangefinder on there, it gives us his exact coordinates, his exact location. There he is! So now we’re going to go and find Ben.

Encontrar a Ben cerca del agua

Muy bien, de vuelta a los terrenos familiares. Ben fue reportado como perdido cerca de la masa de agua. ¿Es eso algo que usted toma en consideración? ¿Cuáles son las cosas que buscas en ese caso?

En búsqueda y rescate, sabemos por el estudio del comportamiento de las personas perdidas, que la gente tiende a viajar cuesta abajo y también se sienten atraídos por las masas de agua, ya sean ríos, arroyos o lagos. Así que si hay una masa de agua que fluye a través de su área de búsqueda, entonces eso se convierte absolutamente en una mayor probabilidad de detección, o un área en la que usted podría ser capaz de encontrarlos.

Kyle, I know I’m your favorite, but you’re my favorite too, and I feel safe in your big drone flying hands!

Cruce térmico

El cruce térmico es muy evidente aquí. Háblanos de ello y explícanos qué significa.

When the sun bakes a certain environment up to a certain temperature, everything inside that area might all be the same temperature, so it all kind of blends together. It’s possible to do so with a human being as well. If the human is there, walking through those solar elliptics on either side is actually a very good thing to do.

Okay, so let’s mess with him since we found him here. I’m going to tell him that he’s got to do something.

Hey, Greg’s actually calling me. You know what would be funny? If he didn’t answer and look at my name and just hung up. Actually, can I do that? No, you can’t!

Kyle está diciendo que la única manera de que podamos enviarte rescate es si imitas lo que el dron está haciendo sobre ti.

¿Quieres que me eleve qué, 300 pies en el aire?

No, no, tienes que imitar... ahí lo tienes, sí, ¡justo así! Y luego creo que tienes que hacer un 360 alrededor de ti mismo también, al igual que el avión no tripulado. ¿Estuvo bien, puedo terminar? Sí.

En busca de Jason

So our team last time we did this, we were out there for an hour, and man, you would have thought that they were in there for 24 hours not eating! About to be a real search and rescue in a minute, about to starve to death. It’s time for a snack.

Is he eating pizza? They were just complaining and complaining. “Did I bring a snack?” Yeah, I’ve got a completely unbranded chocolate sandwich pie thing.

I’m out of shape compared to the last search and rescue. I don’t know why – we left 10 minutes ago from the office and these guys are eating. That’s good.

Muy bien, así que tenemos un reto más para ti, que es encontrar a Jason.

¡Esto es genial, por fin puedo salir de la oficina! La última vez que Bo estuvo en este lugar...

Tuve que subir toda esta colina. Vale, eso es lo que quieren que suba. Ahora sé por qué me enviaron a esto - ¡esto es una locura!

He decided to go kind of on the other side of the creek at the bottom of the hill. So let’s go and find him now.

Efectos del frío en el rendimiento de los drones

En los dos últimos días ha hecho bastante calor, pero ha nevado bastante y las temperaturas nocturnas bajan hasta los diez grados. ¿Cómo afecta eso a la forma en que decides volar y al rendimiento de tu avión y todo eso?

Well, the biggest component of that is you want to be as nice and as friendly to the batteries as possible. Of course, if you’re operating in cold temperatures like we have here today, you want to keep your batteries pampered, you want to keep them nice and warm. Most of these enterprise level drones, regardless of the brand, will have a self-heating mechanism built into them. So if you’re operating these drones in cold weather temperatures, you do need to make sure that they stay somewhat warm and that there isn’t a warm-up period when you toss them into the drone and try to launch them.

Muy bien, ¿hemos sido capaces de encontrarlo?

It looks like I found him! Now I had to find him with the visual camera this time. As it’s a little bit later on in the day, the sun is starting to come down a bit more, so that means his shadow is growing. And with the bigger shadow, that’s very advantageous to a piloto de drones, especially when he’s in a very solar moated area as he is right now. But you can see we see him hunkering down with his pink backpack and doing the appropriate thing – staying still. So that’s another tip for you – wear the Hello Kitty backpack and you’ll be found much more easily!

Consejos para iniciarse en la búsqueda y el salvamento

Bueno Kyle, esa fue una gran información práctica y una gran demostración. ¿Algún consejo para la gente que quiere empezar?

Yeah, reach out to your local sheriff’s department. You can go to the search and rescue commander – that’s usually a lieutenant involved with the sheriff’s department – and give him a demonstration, show him what you can do with your drone, particularly if you have a thermal camera, because thermal cameras are absolutely invaluable in a search and rescue environment. And then over time, you might be able to convince them that you might be an asset to them. Once these search and rescue commanders see what a drone can do and how much it increases their situational awareness, then it becomes a no-brainer for them and they’ll start begging you to show up on scene.

Más información

So if you’re interested in learning more about search and rescue, Kyle right here has recorded an entire course and it’s available on pilotinstitute.com.

Durante el curso, lo que hicimos fue identificar las mejores prácticas en búsqueda y rescate, fusionándolas con las mejores prácticas de la aviación, y las unimos para convertirte en el piloto de búsqueda y rescate más eficiente posible.

And if you want to watch the video that we talked about earlier, click right here – you’ll see how much fun we had last year. And then lastly, in the community we will have some exclusive content with Kyle talking about search and rescue. Hope to see you there!