UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, MERCED

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING

Unmanned Aircraft Systems

ME 143– 03L

LABORATORY #4: Fire Risk Assessment

Proposed SNR plan

Description of flight plan (if you were doing manual flight):

For our SNR flight plan our group decided to fly manually. One member of our
group would be the one flying the drone using the remote. He would maintain an altitude
of about 20 meters in the air and would fly the drone up and down the field within a
confined space. Meanwhile the GCS would be the one looking at the waypoint program
to see the location of the drone as well as telling the RPIC when he needs to turn. Once
the drone has flown up and down the desired area, the RPIC would then hover
randomly in different parts of the designated area to search for other missing items that
have not been found.
Method to search of targets
The method we had in mind for reaching the targets was having the GoPro face
down to see the area where the drone has flown over. The VO would then be the look at
the phone screen to see if there are any targets in the areas the drone has flown over. If
a target is located the VO would tell the RPIC to stop and hover on that area while the
GCS takes notes of the coordinates and takes pictures.
Description of individual roles
The RPIC is in charge of flying the drone manually while taking directions from the
GCS.
The GCS is in charge of monitoring that the drones stays within the desired area, while
notifying the RPIC on when to make its turns. The GCS is also responsible of taking
notes of the coordinates of a target when found and they are also in charge of taking
pictures.
The VO is in charge of looking at the phone screen that displays what the GoPro
camera sees. They are also responsible for searching the targets as the drone flies by
and notifying the RPIC when to stop and hover over an area.

Article about a search and rescue incident

Include citation
Kennedy, Merrit. “Search and Rescue Efforts In Indonesia To Wind Down, With
Thousands Still Missing.” NPR, NPR, 11 Oct. 2018,
www.npr.org/2018/10/11/656505738/search-and-rescue-efforts-in-indonesia-to-wind-
down-with-thousands-still-missing.

summarize the article

On September 28 of this year there was a earthquake and tsunami that hit Indonesia.
The search and rescue teams were put into action almost immediately and were
searching until the 12th of this month. There were officially 2073 dead as of October 11
and predicted to have increased by at least 5000. Due to the mix of the earthquake and
tsunami, there were many areas that were not accessible by heavy machinery for fear
of collapsing the ground on top of the survivors and machines. Just as much of the
ground had become similar to quicksand engulfing many buildings. Many families were
still hoping and praying to find missing members including children.
describe in detail how you can improve this article by adding drones to the team (or
individually).
Drones can be used to take pictures of different areas and have those pictures analysed
and possibly find people in the mix of the ruble similarly to how the melons were found
and counted in the picture shown in class. On top of that if a thermal infrared camera
was used shortly after the disaster it would have been easier to see hotter spots in the
rubble.The pictures could be analysed and the more red spots of the picture would
mean that there is either a fire or body in that area. This could be used to be able to
better direct the clean up crews on areas to focus on and be able to clear the rubble in
the spots that would have a higher priority.
Is it easy to implement drones in SNR?
Yes it easy to implement drones in a search and rescue missions and its the best method. You
just have to strap a camera in the drone and fly the drone up in the sky and get real time
footage to help locate survivors in affected areas. The only hard part is to identify the victims
since the field of view can be small when seen from a small screen. Drones in search and
rescue missions are a better alternative than using a helicopter that can be more expensive to
operate and maybe won't be able to access certain places because of the size of the aircraft.
Not only that but by using drones persons don't have to be sent to go find the the survivors and
be put in harm's way.