Search and Rescue drone trial in Cumbria hailed a success

Experts from the University of Central Lancashire teamed up with the Patterdale Mountain Rescue Team to test the unmanned remote control drone.

It is hoped the project will help save lives in the Lake District by encouraging ‘virtual’ search and rescue assistants to tap into the drone’s live feed online.

On the mission’s launch day 350 people from 25 countries joined live search and rescue trials from a sports field in Glenridding at Ullswater using their desktop PCs, tablets and mobile phones.

The system involves beaming images to anyone logged onto the AeroSee web application who are able to tap or click on any area of the image where they think they have spotted someone injured on the mountainside.

The intelligence, which includes references and GPS location data, is then relayed to the team on the ground, who assess the images before sending the drone back for a closer look if they believe someone is in danger.

In total, 100 images were tagged per minute and 3,500 images were tagged within the first hour of the experiment.

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