UCF Senior Design Group #40: Search And Rescue Drone

What it does.

Our project aims to reduce the human manpower and exposure necessary for SAR by automating the process of human detection and location, which is half the battle in SAR. To this end, we built an autonomous quadcopter that flies within a search area of 22,000 ft2 at the height of 17 ft above the ground, and can, with real-time camera footage, locate a human that is standing, sitting, or lying down, and report that human’s location. The drone can be monitored and controlled through a computer's local web app (built on FLASK).

Drone automation diagram

Automation System Diagram

Communication between the drone and the GCS(Ground Control Station) is achieved through RF. A USB RF transmitter is used to send commands on the GCS side, and the drone has an RF receiver attached to the flight controller. To initiate communication, MavProxy must be started. Mavproxy will connect to COM5, which is the serial connection port to the RF transmitter (This will vary for each computer). Next, the user must open UDP port 14550. This port enables the communication between the flight controller, the automation script, and the user interface. The UI will prompt the user for the UDP port and start the automation script.

Computer vision system diagram

Computer Vision System Map

The detection model used is Tiny YOLOv4(You Only Look Once version 4). The drone has a camera and a video transmitter. The Transmitters send the video signal to the computer running the automation program. The computer vision model will raise a flag if it detects a person with 80% confidence. When the flag is raised, the drone returns the location of the person found along with an image, and the drone will return to launch.

Development tools used

Creo cad software logo FLASK logo openCV logo dronekit image

The Team

Team Member Degree Tasks Email
Christian Lozano CS FLASK Developer
Backend
Frontend
 christianlozano@knights.ucf.edu
Joseph Manalo CS Drone SME (Subject Matter Expert)
Drone Component Selection
Lead Tester and Builder
 joseph70590@gmail.com
Joshua Mutugi CS CV Model Selection
CV Model Integration
 jbmutugi@knights.ucf.edu
Lisa Harrison ME (CS minor) Search Algorithm & Pattern
 harrisol@knights.ucf.edu
Nicolas Norman ME Project Manager
Drone Frame design
Mounting hardware design
Manufacturing
 nick.norman@knights.ucf.edu
Moises D. Cortes Lugo CPE Backend Automation Programmer
Flight Controller Selection
 modcode19@gmail.com

A few documents...

Senior Design I Final Design Document
Senior Design II Final Design Document
Final Presentation