Tohoku University Tough Cyber-Physical AI Research Center and Tohoku Drone Co., Ltd. jointly researched and developed a mountain victim search system using AI and drones.
According to National Police Agency statistics, the number of mountain distress incidents in 2021 will be 2,635, the second highest ever, and has been increasing steadily in recent years.In addition, problems on the side of the search have become apparent, and once a distress occurs, a large number of people search the mountainous area for several days, so in addition to the large operational costs, the safety risk on the side of the searchers increases. Conceivable.
Tohoku University Tough Cyber-Physical AI Research Center (Tohoku University TCPAI), which conducts research and development of robots and AI to solve social and industrial problems, aims to solve various problems such as these. Tohoku Co., Ltd. Together with drones, in 2022, we will start joint research on an innovative victim search system using drones.
In the joint research, we aimed to develop a practical system by combining the drone operation know-how of Tohoku Drone and the research achievements of Tohoku University TCPAI.In the developed system, the drone automatically navigates within a preset range, automatically detects places that look like people from the image of the thermal imaging camera, and transmits the position coordinates.The development of an integrated system that completely automates everything from powering on the drone to aerial photography, finding victims, and reporting via the cloud, goes beyond just finding and flying.
Specifically, after the drone takes off, an infrared camera is used to capture infrared images.Next, from the black-and-white infrared image, AI recognizes a shape that has a higher temperature (whiter color) than the surrounding environment and has the characteristics of a human being.Then, the video is cut into images, the position information of the objects recognized by AI is calculated, and sent to the base by a terminal equipped with a SIM card that can be used after landing or in the sky.Data acquisition by drones tends to take a huge number of shots, but the data sent is only the part recognized by AI, making it easy to check the data.In the joint research, Tohoku Drone was mainly in charge of the aircraft and communication, and Tohoku University TCPAI was mainly in charge of the development of victim detection and location identification technology.
In the future, Tohoku Drone and the Tohoku University Tough Cyber Physical AI Research Center will continue research with the aim of improving the accuracy of AI and location coordinate identification systems, which is a current issue, and aiming for a society that can realize the early detection of mountain victims. To go.
