Watch this space

With the way things are going in QLD perhaps we should all just have our UAV's ready for a real S&R mission!

Originally Posted by chancesAU

With the way things are going in QLD perhaps we should all just have our UAV's ready for a real S&R mission!

Perhaps we should start on the ground first! The Pike River disaster in NZ highlighted just how little progress has been made in terms of tele-S&R.

As I understand it, there are no hazardous area robots available. Once the decision was made to send in a non hazardous area certified robot, the device just couldn't cope with the terain.

It would be nice to think, given the magnitude of the mining industry in Australia, that we would be in a position to send a robot many kilometers down a mine to rescue trapped people. There are clearly major technical challenges involved.

With the ready availability of light planes and choppers, there are no challenges to aerial s&R other than the cost of aircraft, crews and fuel. What advantage to UAVs bring? They still need pilots, ground crews etc.

Perhaps, this year's challenge should be to fly down a long tunnel, find trappped miners and drop a rescue package to them?

Dr S

Originally Posted by chancesAU

With the way things are going in QLD perhaps we should all just have our UAV's ready for a real S&R mission!

I've seen a few comments regarding possible use of UAV's in the S&R following the recent QLD floods and have been meaning to post a response.

My UAV test site is fairly close to the affected area and I have recently been flying a small UAV with 40 min duration, 10 Km live video range and able to be launched and recovered from unprepared runways. So I was tempted to get out there and put my new (hobby/amateur) system to practical use.

As with any UAV flying activity, the process started with a risk assessment and unfortunately that's as far as it got. As you might imagine, there were dozens of emergency services, Army, Navy and media helicopters in the area and my usual risk control of remaining below 400 ft AGL clearly wasn't going to be sufficient in this case. And, as a hobby/amateur operator, I don't have the equipment or licence to coordinate my UAV operations with other airspace operators via radio communications.

The UAV Outback Challenge (particularly the 2009 event) has demonstrated that it is possible to coordinate UAV operations within the same airspace as emergency services and civil airspace operators. But it would have taken nothing short of an Outback Challenge effort during the post flood S&R operation and this was well beyond my capacity. So I put my UAV aside and, like so many other Queenslanders, I went down to the local volunteer center and took a bus to the flood zone to help with the clean up.

I'd like to thank the OBC organisers and competitors for the inspiration and also for raising awareness of the "do's and don’ts" of hobby/amateur UAV operations.

I'm watching...

Here's a little video we cobbled together to show people what the airfield looks like around Kingaroy.
Might give people a look at where we are flying.
Its from our scrutineer flights from Sept. 2010, and is a compilation of the video and photos that were shot on the day.
Cheers. Roland

Latitude 38S UAV 2010 Kingaroy Flight Video Compilation (7 min 6 sec)

That was awesome Roland - good pics/vids/onboard stuff I liked it.

So the challenge is definitely on in 2011? Will there still be a robot delivery challenge?

Cheers, Jack

In Tech Com meeting now discussing options, no word on 2011 yet.

Any progress?

BUMP, Any news Mick?

I have a feeling we will know one way or another soon, I expect the recent floods over there have sharpened minds and perhaps a higher standard will be required, who knows maybe it would'nt even be possible to build to that higher standard in the time left.

That would be a great pity.

I have been rebuilding the 2009 page on sUAS News, its not finished yet. Stupidly I deleted the summary page I had origionally put up.

http://www.suasnews.com/outback-challenge-2009/

Gary, interesting comments. You are obviously well informed. Just a few questions;

1) I am particularly interested to know in what way the floods have sharpened people's minds and how that could affect the competition.

2) This "higher standard" that you refer to....can you describe it in any kind of technical detail?

Dr S

No no I'm just guessing. I live too far away to know whats going on, I just think its the best comp out there.

The floods I think demonstrated a real requirement, imagine if the fire service in every little town had something they could go and make a check of roofs with before the big helicopters arrived, or just popped upstream to look at bridges or other infrastructure. I'm preaching to the choir here. We all know how useful sUAS would be.

Given the small number of airframes that have actually managed to get to the search area it might be that more proof would be required that craft were upto the task.

Maybe the organisers want to push things forward faster.

This would not be a small undertaking in itself if you had to prove you could fly say 2 kms, there are not many places in the world where you could legally do that at the minute.

No doubt we will hear soon. I think we are about a month behind the normal announcment date?

Edit

I wake up and the Japan earthquake and tsunami is all over the news. I'm looking at people waving from windows and rooftops. Its getting silly now, the technology is here that could be put into hands of emergency responders at street level to find people and safer ingress into collapsed buildings.

What a horror story for those living through this right now.

Alright i am gearing up for this year.

new workshop woo!

http://www.rescuerobotics.com.au/new-workshop