Every second counts when saving someone’s life. The longer the search and rescue team takes to find someone the less likely the person is to survive. When an individual goes missing in a high stakes situation more than half of the battle is finding out where the person is. Traditionally search and rescue teams have used manpower to find missing people. This takes hours of searching and the more people on the search and rescue team, the faster you can find the person. However, now search and rescue teams are starting to use drones. Using Drones can eliminate any need for an extensive search and rescue team.

            Drones originally came to the consumer market as a form of entertainment. They are used in a wide variety of settings from professional drone racing to photography to even delivering mail. Matt Williams an Oregon State University photography and digital media professor said that drones are not just used for photography anymore. He went on to say that, “amazon is now even using them to deliver packages so why not to find people?” Drone technology has evolved into many different outlets across our society, possibly search and rescue is the next evolution.

            Drones are a much more effective way to find people. By utilizing the camera technology within the drone, one person can now find the missing individual. There are a few different rescue drones on the market right now. The type of drone that is selected per team would be dependent on the physical location of the search and rescue team. For example, in places with dense forest, Rocky Mountains or a ski culture might want to utilize a more elaborate drone system to increase efficiency.

            These more elaborate drone systems can include a wide variety of features. Since this technology is so new, it is constantly evolving and improving. A few search and rescue drones include such features as a light beacon. This allows a powerful beam of light to illuminate where the found individual is. Then a search and rescue team can go and save the individual quickly and safely.

            According to the Snowy Canyon State Park in Utah, a 60-year-old man was lost and the search and rescue team used a drone to help find him. The drone was able to find him much faster than any rescue team would have. The drone was flown remotely by a team member at the search and rescue headquarters. The drone stayed with the man and produced a light beacon so the search and rescue team could reach him safely and efficiently. The team was able to save the man’s life. Without the drone the mission would have taken a much greater amount of time. Possibly even spanning over a few days. If this would have occurred there would have been a good chance that the man would not have made it.

            Another very effective form of drone search and rescue technology is cue utilization. These “cues” are a sort of sensor that are placed throughout the landscape. According to Shekh, Shaheen, Jaime C Auton, and Mark W Wiggins. “The Effects of Cue Utilization and Target-Related Information on Target Detection during a Simulated Drone Search and Rescue Task” creating a system of cues can help the efficiency of a team. By doing this the drone pilot is able to have a more accurate description of exactly where the drone is. This can be more reliable than a GPS that may be already existing inside the drone. This however, is expensive and time consuming and has more glaring drawbacks than the light beam drone technology.

            Utilizing a “cue” system could also be beneficial to the ecology of the land. According to Zhang, Hu, Lian, Fan, Ouyang, and Ye. “Seeing the Forest from Drones: Testing the Potential of Lightweight Drones as a Tool for Long-term Forest Monitoring” the same cue system that can be used to save a life can also be used to save the forest. When the drone technology is not being used to find people, the drones can be used to look at areas of the forest that are extremely hard to get to. This can allow researchers to view the forest without having to leave their post for places in the forest that are extremely hard to get to.

            The cue system is much more costly than the light beam system for a number of reasons. The first reason being that each sensor is costly and in “The Effects of Cue Utilization and Target-Related Information on Target Detection during a Simulated Drone Search and Rescue Task” Shekh, Shaheen, Jaime C Auton, and Mark W Wiggins suggested that a cue were to be placed every other mile. Depending on the area that is desired to be monitored that would be a large number of sensors. This technology is also fairly advanced and would need a trained specialist to be able to operate it.

            Both systems would need a training course for the teams to be able to properly use the drones. Which is another reason why this technology will be expensive. The search and rescue teams will need to select people they would like to train to be able to use the drones. Including the purchasing of a drone. This application of the technology is so new that very few government funded establishments such as national parks are able to acquire them. 

            Once the infrastructure is put into place the community will benefit for years on end. It is the lack of money and time that is keeping many search and rescue teams from officially transferring over. This is happening from lack of government funding to a seemingly frivolous updates to a search and rescue team.

            Drones can be utilized in so many new ways. Hopefully, search and rescue will be one of them. Using drones for their efficiency in finding people can help save so many people’s lives. The evolution of the drone has come so far. Let’s try and use this amazing technology for good.