Between January 1990 and December 1999, the Search and Rescue (SAR) team in Yosemite Valley performed 1912 SAR missions, assisting 2327 individuals and recording 2077 injuries and illnesses. The average mission required 12 SAR personnel and cost $4400. Despite their heroic efforts, 112 fatalities occurred throughout the 10-year study period, yielding a SAR case fatality rate of 4.8% [1]. Over 100 missions took place in hard-to-reach areas such as El Capitan and Half Dome, where helicopter rescue may be impossible due to the steepness of the terrain. In some cases, the rescue time greatly exceeded the average of 5 hours due to the challenge of locating victims with limited knowledge of their geographic position, surrounding hazards or state of health.

 

To aid in these efforts, advances in sensing, high-performance computing and low SWaP (size, weight and power) unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are enabling higher squad-level intelligence and situational awareness. Still, the majority of UAS require user-designated waypoints to plan their autonomous flight, leaving the operator to make critical decisions with limited knowledge. Improvements in online decision-making and situational awareness would greatly reduce the odds of fatality in these stressful situations by providing a basis for more informative reasoning and planning in the air. This level of analysis would support robust planning for such missions without placing a cognitive burden on the SAR operationalists. As an aerospace engineer who has witnessed these dangerous circumstances first-hand through rock climbing, I feel morally responsible for helping to improve these technologies. The following timeline provides an overview of my progress - even in this early stage of development.

 

Stay tuned for updates, open-source flight code and an occasional blurb on my thoughts from the field!

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[1] E. Hung, D. Townes, "Search and Rescue in Yosemite National Park: A 10-Year Review," Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, 18, pp. 111-117, 2007.