# Advancing Search & Rescue Operations Through Autonomous Drone Patrols

- Event: NestGen ’24
- Published: March 4, 2024
- Length: 31:29
- Watch: https://nestgen.org/library/watch/23iPvOPohng/

> The transcript of a recorded NestGen session, for reading or for use with an AI tool. It comes from the video's
> captions; automatic captions can mishear names and terms.

## About this session

Delve into the applications of coastal UAV surveillance, from safeguarding coastlines to advancing public safety strategies.

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## Transcript

**[0:20]** hello and welcome to one of the first sessions of the largest and the biggest n than ever my name is ainka and I am excited to welcome you all in today's session we dwelve into how Australian UAV service is using The Cutting Edge drone technology for Public Safety operations like search and rescue incident response Wildlife surveillance and more we also discuss how Australian UAV service is taking a LED approach to deploy the autonomous Zone technology at scale with that I would also like to introduce our speaker speaker for today Paul Hardy Paul is a driven professional and dedicated project management and people relationship expert with a history of leading successful teams and ensuring high quality outcomes he's motivated by enthusiastic and creative teams who communicate well and have strong emphasis on work life balance Paul has a passion for the environment and for scientific involvement in Industry Paul has experience in governance strategic

**[1:23]** planning and board director positions in Paul's career Paul wants to ensure a diverse inclusive and collaborative approach is taken throughout project delivery before we start we have some housekeeping rules for you so grab your favorite cup of mocha and get super comfortable because this session is going to be one of its kind please feel free to type in any questions you might have during the session in the Q&A chat box the sessions are getting recorded and will be published soon we also have booth in Expo session please make sure you visit it during networking and boo visit slots last but not the least please remember to capture your favorite moments of the session and start them share them on Twitter and Linkedin by using #n and with that Paul the stage is your uh before that I also like to thank our uh sponsors title sponsor DJ Enterprise as well as a go sponsor sunal apps over to you Paul thanks and um good morning good evening wherever you are daring in from I'm uh

**[2:28]** really pleased and I'm just going to share my screen uh really pleased to be to be walking you through the world of self life saving and other emergency services in Australia in New South Wales particularly um and the journey that I've been on in the five years that I've spent um in the surf life saving New South Wales drone team or the Australian UAV service interrupt why there's a bit static in your ways if you can check your M audence yeah yeah I'll uh I'll try talk clearly it's the it's the one Mark um yeah it's on it's selected the right Mark um that might help a little bit there um cool as as we go I'm going to walk through I'll share some really interesting photos and videos in my presentation um any questions as we saw um would would be really really useful um and yeah hopefully my voice is all right now is it

**[3:31]** I I think you're still getting some comments if you can try switching your microphone yeah okay I'll try one other one another microphone would be the [Music] GU and how's that has that changed at all no it hasn't it was a better while ago okay I'll go back to what I what I think I was on but otherwise yeah that's going to be what it is I'm not sure what's happened between checking with you before is that is that still the same yeah yeah it's the same sorry maybe you can try on the top right you can just stop sharing audio and video and then again start sharing if that works sure cool how's that let's check again it's still the same I'm sorry Paul okay um is

**[4:34]** it is it listenable or is it it is uh yeah it's listenable u I mean audience can comment if you're not able to hear clearly or understand but I think we good now okay sure okay sorry everyone sorry for the hassles we did do a check before and it's worked fine um well today's a Saturday but it worked fine all on on Friday um I'm sorry um I'll try and speak nice and clearly and hopefully it comes out right um I think uh yeah as as we go um I will I will talk nice and uh lower volume as well hopefully that helps um thank you um all right uh so I'm going to share my presentation um there's some really interesting photos and videos and I'm going to walk you through the history the current moment and the future um well I'm I'm sorry I mean people are saying they're not able to hear maybe if you want to try and rejoin let's see if that helps one last check is that this

**[5:38]** much better what you what you just did is much better okay yeah how's that I'll wait for someone to comment in the chat yes yes I think it is better if the audience can let us know yeah I I'll keep going while I wait for com hope yeah I think great thanks and sorry for the hustle let's um let's roll on so I'll quickly recap so um I'm really pleased to be here thanks FL base for hosting um and I'm pleased to walk you through the five years of of History um that I have at Surf life saving New South Wales and um walk you through the the history the current moment and where we see brones going in the future um at Surf life7 so I've got some interesting photos and videos um in my presentation to to help so thanks everyone there for putting up the to get us started

**[6:39]** great so Surplus 7's been on the journey using drums for seven years now um I've been around for four and a half five years of that Journey um the team has grown and our operations have changed massively during that time I'll give you a little insight into into how they've changed in the things we're doing um but we're based in Sydney Australia um covering the state of New South Wales but operating Australia wide and doing some International drone flying as well um so just getting in mind regard to the rules and regulations and sort of our opment typically looks like that on the beach um so a little bit about me I moved from um New Zealand to Australia five years ago to work with self life saving um it's been a massive opportunity and I've learned a lot about drones I didn't come from a drone background um but as we all know there're are tool that's apply to various Industries and you can really put them in a lot of scenarios and I think that's been the beauty about it for me is

**[7:39]** been really well supported by a lot of Partners along the journey learning a lot about what friends can do and I've um sort of brought my skills for that and had an awesome team as well along the way and that's been the success of the program so um in terms of what Z life saving currently owns and just background as well the last thing to recap that um that I sort of missed at the start when uh my microphone wasn't working surf life saving New South Wales drone team is called the Australian UAV service so that's the the reason for that um that that team or logo used through the presentation um we've got a massive Fleet of of over 300 aircraft I haven't done the specific counts on this page but um sort of uh drones that will typically most of us will be familiar with the multier models and DJI mavic 2os and threes where we're phasing up the mavic 2 as they sort of become end of life um the

**[8:42]** the mavic 3 uh zooms and thermals are matched to at each location to enable um the real visual daytime work to be done with the zooms and then to provide a thermal um capability for search and rescue and that kind of thing as more of our life- saving function um the matrice 30s are used by more higher capability units up and down the coast line and similar to matrice 300 um they're also being fed out in in a slower fashion as well than the 300 um the M twos and threes are used in training kits so there's a fair number of those four of them come to kit and be one training sessions and we have a training module that's standard for all surf members um so we have and uh volunteer um cohort as well so 250 plus casual staff and over 300 volunteers although although there's some double counting of numbers in there as well um I would highlight so a lot of volunteers will will simp work as well in so it's really

**[9:47]** nice blend um depending on where they're working and what they're doing um so our flights and our typical flights 90% of our work is done on the coastline at 50 key locations across the new souw Coast border to border and at Coastal Council throughout the year we under uh undertake throughout last Financial year we undertook 40,000 um drone flights massive team of Pilots getting that done then in Australian regulatory upating environment every one of those flights or day day plan was planned um and audited to our safety management system um and they're adhering to the rules there providing uh is the is the voice I've Just Seen A comment there the Jinky of the voice gone wor or no yes yes we can hear you okay all good just coming all good um yeah massive

**[10:53]** amount of fly hours there across that at location so I I said yeah 50 of those are fixed locations um and there's 1 Mobile locations as well which contain either the m30 or the m300 or um another 3 Enterprise thermal as a more High capability and then Mobile locations as well those those 30 additional locations so 50 F and 30 mobile is our typical 20 um 365 um day year service across new swayers um shark spotting is a massive part of the program and it's the reason that uh the program was introduced um way back in 2017 when drone the first trial was a solution for Dr for shark spotting um was when we spot a sh we can use the S on the top of the Drone we can launch a a boat from the beach we can close the beach um we tell the life guards there's a number of

**[11:56]** actions and they're called counter measures and that's that that um count there for last year I know this year I think we're already at almost yeah over 30,000 flights so we're on track to sort of pick up towards the 50,000 flights for this financial year um as I yeah quickly mentioned with um 10,000 flight hours a year um there's a massive risk that Sur s exits um and and we manage really ly across the whole team and there's multiple layers in our safety management system um from the training to the location specific inductions to um appropriate training for the level of operation um but also the flight loging which is just a massive part and helps us massively um review and continually improve on pilot habits and and potential um flyways or errors that they that happen during flight so every

**[13:01]** um in the inset there you'll be able to see my mouse the yellow tracks there are actual flights that any of you will be familiar with that sink through into a jug logging system um and then we've implemented a accident incident in has a reporting system as well or it's part of that AVC system for the Australian B um complaints are an interesting R and um in the four and a half years that have been here I've only had two complaints um from members of the community from drones hovering um there was concern privacy concerns right with so at a beach and using that flight loging system I was really quickly able to find out what time and what location and Pull up The Right Flight and show them that a the Drone was facing up to see um it wasn't capturing video it wasn't zoing in and it was only a 10 or 15 second point pause um perhaps while they waited for clear space to launch and or to

**[14:04]** fly out to get over the water so really minimal and it makes my web a lot easier um cool so um the equipment that we've used I've I've given a bit of a rundown but I guess this slide it's really worth describing the advancements in the equipment and what used to be large suitcase sized um kits that taking down to the beach the Phantom fours with large batteries and overheating quite easily just continues to reduce and we're taking now a brief Co sized um mavic 2 or mavic 3 kit um and the equipment just continues to get better we work really closely with djr being that's the the largest brand that brand that we use across the fleet um and provide them with contined feedback and work really closely on all maintenance bits and repairs that go through them in Australia um as we've grown uh We've the drones have been used in our operations and

**[15:09]** for other emergency service operations more and more no longer they just used to spot shafts and the beaches as they were four and a half years ago we've evolved and particularly through um the bush fires was an early um early minimal use and then particularly the floods in 2022 in the Wes um really saw the drones being deployed on a full scale across Welles so um we had six deployments in total um across 2022 starting in January July um and then a continued appointment from October through to December where two drone teams of two people each were driving around Regional newers so been wearing their s self life s uniform away from the coast turning in Regional towns where people have never seen a self life sa before with a new technology um to to use the drum so um with the theme of n nesg in mind I guess this is probably where we transition and

**[16:14]** we beginning a lot of our learning in this these type of operations is informing where we see the automation real automation going into the future um yes there's interesting and and aw some um footage and work being done all across Australia so um Rene Bello from the Department of climate change energy the environment and water and just kinding enough to share this footage with me from some work up in the norn Cheroke um but these are just more more examples that that many of you in will be familiar with and and and things yeah that can be done withs and there's also Sy this is this is the best um so we've heard about our layed approach um and this that's all kind of previous um now uh I'm

**[17:16]** going to address I guess our middle layer Layer Two um and this is where we see the Drone the Box really come into the FL and this is I guess the main or focus of of Mis gen and so I'm going to pause on this and describe at where we're where we're at in this space so in June last year we were lucky enough to get DJI do one of the first in Australia and we Tred at 16 days of visual s plan up on the North Coast of news um during that time and I think we've got some stats in the later slide um we flew over 24 hours of flight we were mail openings or closings we didn't get to experience any um really bad weather um um and uh and I was encouraging the team to get get a hose out and and give it a give it a hosing down but we'll we'll get there um because we're actually um currently in the order process for three dos um to be installed and about to submit our beond visual line of start approval P for with

**[18:19]** fessa um to begin using those and setting up Operation Center um for Coastal surveillance um so really excting Place For Us using these drones and uh and hopefully with those approvals we'll receive some of the first uh um populous area um baby loss approvals using the DJI do in Australia under the Sora process so really exciting yet to be seen and a minimum of three months Turn Around from from C and W so we W so there we are there's the the stats um yes also worth explaining um the DJI Doc is just what we've managed managed to test so far um we are agnostic in terms of what we use and so we can see flub up there on the screen DJI's first version of minimum viable product gu M People to get learning about the do um

**[19:19]** but with uh The Sur team and I we're going to test a range of um products and solutions including uh FlytBase for the control of uh the dock as well and so we're open so I guess all options are just going to need to note that um we're also developing a base unit which will allow um connection uh so it will have backup power um two SIM cards a sty modem um and a range of sort of other um Technologies power on board um otherwise it's just the do and it's it enables it to be a bit more portable and um re systems web Station security camera things like that I guess it goes without saying and and by registering and being here tonight you you can get a sense and you probably know the types of things that the dog can do knowing a little bit now about self life setting operations but to describe it

**[20:23]** quickly we do over 40,000 flights a year a lot of those at the same location of the same flight tracks varying slightly um but looking at the same patch of water looking for shafts there's potential that we can automate that but we definitely don't want to do it at the um at the cost of I guess a local community presence someone on the beach um who lives nearby um the Drone Pilot Flying the Drone able to show the community what they can see there's a sense of trust that that creates where we want these as more remote locations or additional areas where we can help um at a lower cost and the efficiencies of scale by introducing the Dr box is where we can really start to help so that's the reason for a light approach we definitely each solution has its kind of thing um or a disaster site so I'll describe some of the other work that we're doing with other Emergency Services where say a fire or a

**[21:26]** flood doesn't really need as much of the human touch as a as a busy local Beach does um but also they can be launched at night launch outside conditions that normally we would be offer and there's no Sur service on typically throughout the winter and things like that so I would have an immediate response time was exciting um I've already run through guess so we we're tring three we're yet getting three dots to trial for our operations we're putting them at three coastal locations we're also working with a couple of other news uh government emergency services to um trial um some docs but also some other Technologies and uh and um there'll be news coming out about that I guess in the in the future um but if you're interested and you want to learn more or you've got something a point you want to raise or feedback or anything I would love feedback and I'll have my contact details on on the last

**[22:27]** page uh our third layer and I guess this feeds into the mesg kind of theme in regard to the technology or sry the data that's coming from all three layers as we see them of our operations um there's common ly between the types of data and there's probably going to need to be common systems and operating procedures and awareness of what each of the lowers is doing yes this slide just to quickly outline some of the work that we've done in the long range Str we'll see those as over and hour endurance um but more up towards the 5 plus hours up to 200 km range um and these are really like a different use of game um so they're not made for kind of protecting a local Beach but potentially they can collect data along a whole peline of where people are swimming or like can mif fire front or before and after fires or during get some

**[23:32]** live footage back um and so these are the kind of things that that were also traving alongside alongside um our emergency service Partners um so we Tri four of those drones the four drones you can see there and I I'll run through the names of them quickly the Elbert systems free space s and the Delta c c um which them through seven different scenarios and you can see um and actually the one that's missing is is shark spotting that's probably the most important but I think we knew we were doing that regardless and then there's other so six scenarios here um so the coastal search and rescue looking for someone missing along the coaster in the water in land search rescue a bush Walker um or something like that get missing potentially um and we did it not as well we did the fast B scenario using thermal cameras and and other is um long range Recon reconnaissance was just about testing the full range and endurance of the brain so

**[24:35]** how far long they could fly that's the reason for that long yellow path up up north along the CL there and then oror Mosaic that was about catching visual but also M spectral and I can see um yeah a question there about undergrowth and things like that that was the reason for capturing mold Spectre which can um be analyzed to to um understand the fuel loading or other growth grow in areas to give a sense to Bush fire authorities of how this an area might be so that's we included that one cool um I Jinky how long have I got um I've got some footage and I can sharing but I' also encourage 5 minutes fall and we still I mean we have some questions coming in so we can see maybe a small video and then jump to questions I'll let the video talk through this was uh this was on the M32 during uh

**[25:43]** P news agency and if anyone hasn't seen before just then Cony the missing paper the potential is is massive and this is try and for to nothing nothing ser there um some of the other potential as well and one other question that I'll get out in front of before I play this video actually um everyone always asks about dropping things from gones um and that was something that that sur7 was really well known for um about six or seven years ago um our view on it has has changed in that time um and the best way to describe it is the impact that putting a flotation device on the bottom of the Drone the Drone needs to be larger um there's more train involved there's more risk involved it's hard to for the bbes to fly over someone who might be in trouble um plus we already have a multitude of of um really capable Lifesavers

**[26:50]** on jet skes and Bs which you fill up with petrol and they can drive a whole day along the coast line um it's it's a it's a cost balance as well um and and and Lis and there's a lot of factors that say that we believe bones can add so much value in regard to proactively patrolling the coastline particularly that's the drowning window for someone drowning um where they're still they we know they're in trouble but they're still conscious enough to grab a flotation device and the potential to launch a drone and get them to get the Drone to that person in that critical time is so small that the the cost the risk all of those factors just are so massive compared to that small potential of of magic of time that we could get there to save them but if we could be there for 30 minutes before or covering the co with the longrange Drone and identify them before they

**[27:51]** even get in trouble we could have proactive Life Services this so we're focusing ear arm in the it's called the drowning chain and I yeah sure but there's a there's whole chain where prevention is actually much more get your res moment which could be 20 seconds before they go under water um here's some footage I guess just describing the different camera types as respect and some testing that to do to that's do um but once we get to the MVR clear just one example shs could be us espe got some sh videos but I will open up the questions and that's thanks a lot Paul thanks a lot for that wonderful

**[28:56]** session yeah so yeah we we have a few questions and I'll quickly like to like to summarize like you emphasize that time is of the essence during these Public Safety operations or or these specific use cases and drone Technologies helping us reduce that response time and playing a big role in it as well as thanks for sharing that layered approach that UAV Services Australian UAV Services taking uh to get to that level where you'll be using the technology at very large scale thanks a lot and so a couple of questions a few questions that we have uh one is how do you think so earlier in the uh during the session you mentioned you have a fleet of drones but how do you foresee that Fleet changing into docking stations within a couple of years so do you think there will only be drones or docking stations as well yeah good good question so I think there'll be both I don't think way Li as will try to PR I think

**[29:59]** um uh our communities will always appreciate having a real drone pilot there at the very busy beaches and their ability to manage um to manage some of the risks and and also just as I said to be in person to show someone this is what the Drone can see how cool is that um teaching engaging in inspiring our um young drone pallets to ensure we continue to have skilled people to work in our teams where whether that's on the beach W or back in the remote Operation Center but I definitely think drone in the boxes are part of our a part of our L solution and particularly potentially slightly quiet a definitely to start with while we trial and prove the technology fer and and learn it ourselves um while we understand the ability to fly with people and at a at a really low risk and acceptable risk um but I think there's there space for both um Solutions and and what we currently do but the Emergency

**[31:02]** Services um like that period of two months where Contin continually deployed if there's a flooded like area with houses nearby and it's at risk for a month or something put a couple of um I can see a future model where we put a couple of semi- portable drone docks um at that location and they scan daily and provide up toate information there's amazing potential in a whole range of scenarios