A Convolutional Neural Network Approach for Assisting Avalanche Search and Rescue Operations with UAV Imagery

Following an avalanche, one of the factors that affect victims' chance of survival is the speed with which they are located and dug out. Rescue teams use techniques like trained rescue dogs and electronic transceivers to locate victims. However, the resources and time required to deploy rescue teams are major bottlenecks that decrease a victim's chance of survival. Advances in the field of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enabled the use of flying robots equipped with sensors like optical cameras to assess the damage caused by natural or manmade disasters and locate victims in the debris. In this paper, we propose assisting avalanche search and rescue (SAR) operations with UAVs fitted with vision cameras. The sequence of images of the avalanche debris captured by the UAV is processed with a pre-trained Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to extract discriminative features. A trained linear Support Vector Machine (SVM) is integrated at the top of the CNN to detect objects of interest...