Initial experiments on 3D modeling of complex disaster environments using unmanned aerial vehicles

Author

Ferworn, Alexander ; Tran, Jimmy ; Ufkes, Alex ; D´Souza, Andrew

Author_Institution

Ryerson Univ., Toronto, ON, Canada

fYear

2011

fDate

1-5 Nov. 2011

Firstpage

167

Lastpage

171

Abstract

The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has the potential to significantly improve the situation awareness of emergency first responders working at urban disaster sites. Having the characteristics of being small, light-weight and quickly deployable, UAVs offer the ability to fly over an urban disaster and provide intelligence to Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) task force efforts before precious operational resources are committed on the ground. In this paper we discuss our experience with using a small UAV to perform the task of creating a 3D model of a rubble pile´s surface using commercial off the shelf (COTS) components in the form of an available UAV equipped with a modified video game sensing package.

Keywords

autonomous aerial vehicles; computer games; disasters; emergency services; robot vision; solid modelling; 3D modeling; COTS components; USAR task force efforts; Urban Search and Rescue task force efforts; commercial off the shelf components; complex disaster environments; emergency first responders; light-weight UAV; operational resources; rubble pile surface; situation awareness; unmanned aerial vehicles; urban disaster sites; video game sensing package; Cameras; Data models; Hardware; Payloads; Sensors; Solid modeling; Three dimensional displays; 3D; UAV; aerial; disaster; modeling; rubble; search and rescue;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR), 2011 IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Kyoto

Print_ISBN

978-1-61284-770-2

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/SSRR.2011.6106781

Filename

6106781