Request for Proposal (Search & Rescue UAS)

Overview of Purpose of UAS

Unmanned aircraft systems have gradually been used for humanitarian work in disasters which usually strike with little or no advance warnings. The aftermath of such events often require time critical search and rescue efforts, which can be difficult in terms of accessibility to disaster zone for delivery of medical and logistic supplies, and continuous monitoring of the situation. According to Reich (2016), the total economic and human impact of worldwide disasters from 2002 to 2012 amounted to 1.2 million deaths and $1.7 trillion in damages. Therefore, with the increasing number of disaster occurrences around the world, possibly due to climate change, there is an urgent and paramount need to provide cost effective solutions for any disaster management situation.

The intended purpose of the UAS in this proposal is for a two-member crew team in first responder agencies such as Fire, Medical or Police departments to use it and aid search and rescue operations in any disaster situation. The UAS operation is to be carried out so as to provide updated aerial overview of the disaster zone, including the detection of human survivors, using on-board sensors. The data will be relayed wirelessly in real-time to the command station to allow the timely formulation of rescue actions.

Requirements

            The three major baseline requirements for the UAS include transportability and support equipment, air vehicle element, and payload.

Transportability & Support Equipment

• The whole system (including the case) should weigh no more than 30kg to allow two-man lifting.

• The case should not be more than 30 inches long by 15 inches wide in dimensions and have wheels with stainless steel bearings, double throw latches and retractable handles.

• The case used to hold all the components shall have individual compartments padded with reconfigurable expanded polyethylene foams (EPE) specifically cut out for the components.

• The case should be waterproof, dustproof and crush resistant.

• The case should be used as a ground control station, with incorporated power supplies switchable between international worldwide standard voltage ratings (120V to 240V) and plug types.

• The case should incorporate additional quick battery charging capabilities for at least two units of 5000mAh 4 cell lithium polymer (Lipo) batteries for air vehicle.

Air Vehicle Element

• Shall be able to fly at altitudes up to 500 feet above ground.

• Shall have a flight endurance of at least 40 minutes with maximum payload.

• Shall have an operational range of at least 2 km.

• Shall be able to vertical take-off and land, with stable GPS hovering in space of no more than vertical 0.2 meter and horizontal 0.5 meter tolerances.

• Shall be able to deploy into the air with GPS locked within 5 minutes upon power up.

• Shall be powered up using electrical power only and also provide power to payloads.

• Shall be able to perform autonomous waypoint flights, and return to home functions in cases of lost links and low battery.

• Shall be able to carry a payload of at least 7 kg.

• Shall be able to be reconfigured within 5 minutes to carry medical supplies of up to 2 kg.

 Payload

• Shall provide high definition (720p at 25frames/sec) day and night video and still image (at least 10Mpixels) capturing capability in all weather conditions and relay them to ground station in real time with lag of no more than 0.5 second.

• Shall be capable of infrared operation of up to 500 feet above ground level.

• Shall be capable of broadcasting audio messages from ground control station via an on-board speaker system of at least 50 dB at 10 meters’ distance between air vehicle and intended human receiver.

• Shall be able to operate using air vehicle power supply.

Testing & Development

            An acceptance test is to be carried out on the UAS system to ensure that it meets all baseline requirements, and to solve any associated technical issues with the supplier. According to Austin (2010), there are 10 phases to the development of a UAS. The air vehicle has to be designed and built whereas the payloads can be acquired commercially off-the-shelf and integrated into UAS. The development and testing process should take no more than one year from project conceptualization.

Figure 1. Testing and Development Schedule.

Testing and Acceptance

• Testing of case, air vehicle and incorporated payloads should be carried out in all weather conditions, whether simulated indoors or outdoors.

• All required power supplies are to be tested for functionality, accuracy and reliability.

• The UAS is to be operated to test its recovery mode in lost link by turning the radio transmitter off.

   References

Austin, R. (2010). Unmanned aircraft systems: UAVs design, development and deployment. West Sussex, UK: John Wiley & Sons.

Riech, L. (2016, January 26). How drones are being used in disaster management? Geo Awesomeness. Retrieved from http://geoawesomeness.com/drones-fly-rescue/

UAS Mission: Firefighting

Introduction

Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) has been proven to have tremendous potential for many real world applications today. They can be used to perform missions such as search and rescue, facility inspection, border patrol, surveillance and reconnaissance, military strikes, etc. Depending on mission type, various platforms with different payload capabilities are widely available in the market.

UAS Technology for Firefighting

Wildfires, especially those in densely populated forest, are very deadly and can have devastating consequences if they rapidly spread and destroy everything in their path. According to Burgess (2014), there are average occurrences of 100,000 forest fires in the US that devastated more than 4 to 5 million acres of land annually. Fighting forest fires require tremendous amount of resources such as deploying manned aircraft to overfly the fires carrying water-filled tanks to try and put out or dampen the forest. At the same time, there will also be firefighters on the ground that support the firefighting operation. These operations are increasingly getting riskier and difficult as forest fires are getting bigger on average, possibly due to climate change (Werner, 2015).

UAS Platforms

            Various platforms of UASs can be deployed for firefighting purposes. The aircraft first have to be able to detect hotspots and problematic areas, putting out the fires and also monitor and perform any necessary search and rescue under thick smoke and heat that can make it difficult for human firefighters and other manned aircraft to safely tackle the problem.

            KMAX helicopter. One of the platforms that is well suited to aid firefighting is the KMAX helicopter. It is a remotely piloted helicopter, which has the option to also carry a human pilot, that has demonstrated good potential to drop about 6,000 lbs of water or fire retardant (Vertical Mag, 2015). Being a helicopter with capabilities of vertical take-offs and landing as well as hovering in space, it is ideal for monitoring and concentrating efforts on a particular spot on ground.

            Boeing Insitu ScanEagle. Another platform can be the Boeing Insitu ScanEagle. Conveniently launched from a catapult and retrieved via a skyhook, this UAS has been used to monitor forest fire in Olympic National Park (Gates, 2015).  It is a fixed wing long endurance UAS that is capable of flying non-stop for 15 hours (Boeing, 2016). Therefore, it is suitable to quickly scan the area for hotspots with suitable onboard sensors to allow the hotspots to be targeted before the fire spreads bigger and become unmanageable.

            MQ-9 Predator. The Predator UAS, commonly known to be used for military strikes, can also be configured with appropriate infra-red sensors to aid firefighting efforts. According to Pocock (2013), the Predator had been deployed to support firefighters in controlling the huge California Rim fire. The longer endurance of the platform is superior over helicopters and like the rest of the platforms, it can be used to identify hotspots, direction of fire, and other important real-time information to be shared with ground commanders. This will help better manage firefighting efforts, as well as aiding the uncovering of safe routes for retreating in case the fire becomes uncontrollable (Pocock, 2013).

Challenges

            There are legal challenges associated with using UAS for firefighting efforts. There have been issues of UASs getting into the way of air-tankers and other manned aircraft, especially if the firefighting involves joint efforts from multiple agencies (Zorthian, 2016). FAA has been very concerned about the integration of UAS in the national airspace system (NAS). Without a robust and standardized set of rules and procedures, commercial activities using UASs have been very much limited to those who have successfully gotten approval from FAA with a certificate of authorization. However, while UAS has been largely proven to benefit firefighting and rescue, there is an ethical dilemma as to which is more important, saving lives without approval from FAA or getting approval first but risk being too late to appropriately handle any firefighting or rescue efforts in time. According to Werner (2015), firefighting agencies are in the midst of working out a set of established procedures to have UAS flights a regular part of firefighting activities, and this will enable the firefighting agency to dispense away with the cumbersome procedure of getting FAA approval for every unmanned flight. Another challenge would be the issue of privacy. Flying a UAS over areas to monitor and detect hotspots may not be popular with everyone resident in the vicinity. People may find their privacy intruded, especially with current state of the art image sensors.

Conclusion

            While UASs have time and time again been proven as valuable assets for aiding firefighting efforts in wildfires, legal and ethical issues will exist until such time when FAA and law enforcement agencies sort out the finer details of how to safely integrate UAS into the airspace.

References

Burgees, M. (2014, November 20). Fighting the spread: Drones touted as safer way to stop forest fires. Factor. Retrieved from http://factor-tech.com/drones/9707-fighting-the-spread-drones-touted-as-safer-way-to-stop-forest-fires/

Boeing (2016). ScanEagle unmanned aerial vehicle. Retrieved from http://www.boeing.com/history/products/scaneagle-unmanned-aerial-vehicle.page

Gates, D. (2015, August 21). Drones tracks fire hot spots in successful Olympic forest test. Seattle Times. Retrieved from http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/drone-tracks-fire-hotspots-in-successful-national-park-test/

Pocock, C. (2013, October 4). Predator UAV helps fight fire in California. AIN Online. Retrieved from http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/defense/2013-10-04/predator-uav-helps-fight-fires-california

Vertical Mag (2015, October 20). Unmanned KMAX completes firefighting demo. Retrieved from http://www.verticalmag.com/news/unmannedkmaxcompletesfirefightingdemo/

Werner (2015, June). Fire drones. Aerospace America. Retrieved from http://www.aerospaceamerica.org/Documents/Aerospace%20America%20PDFs%202015/June2015/Feature_FireDrones_AA_June2015-3.pdf

Zorthian, J. (2016, June 27). Drones are a big problem for firefighters battling massive blazes. Time. Retrieved from http://time.com/4383769/drones-firefighters-wildfires/