When Human Eyes Fail, This DIY AI Drone Software Steals the Show in Search and Rescue Missions!
“This Homemade AI Drone Software Finds People When Search and Rescue Teams Can’t”
“Picture this: You’re hiking through the Alaska wilderness, about 30 minutes from your car, when you trip and sprain your ankle. You’re unable to walk. You send out a distress call, but the sun is setting and incoming rain starts to blur your tracks.” That’s fun, right? Good news, by the way, there’s a shiny new tech solution to replace the age-old method of “hoping someone finds you before the bears do.”
AI has put its thinking cap on and decided it wants to play hero in GPS-denied environments. It’s been training hard under the diligent tutelage of Ryan Gibson, a 26-year-old who clearly needed a hobby, in biologically-inspired algorithms. Gibson gave the AI an assignment: find a small, orange, cylindrical object in his folks’ 10-acre orchard. It’s like ‘Where’s Waldo,’ but less fun and more… technological.
One might wonder why it was the young man who took the brunt of this strenuous task, while the AI gets to chill, munching on data and playing ‘find the object.’ AI, Brock University’s Samir Gill is judging, has to “see through the trees” and not girl out every time it spots a vibrant color. But at least the AI would not disappoint when charged with the task of finding Waldo in that striped chaos.
In the same vein, as the thick fog, heavy rain, or the fifth season of ‘The Walking Dead’ rendered GPS useless, zippy drones, equipped with all the AI software glory, took charge of the situation. Aided by the drone’s lidar, a kind of 3D radar that uses lasers, the fog did not stand a chance. Top that with herculean efforts of Gibson’s university resource, and voila! You have a tech-savvy, albeit nerdy lifesaver.
Frankly, the biggest advantage of this system is the resemblance to a real-life video game scenario. Just imagine dozens of little neon orange dots on an overlay, racing across a satellite map to find you. Now imagine those dots being drones, each carrying a copy of that AI software. Like worker ants figuring out where to haul their next breadcrumb. Yes, the breadcrumb is you!
Imagine their little machine minds working tirelessly to get you home safe, no breaks or coffee runs. They’d scan and scan, tirelessly looking until they finally find you – wherever you may be huddled up on this not so beautiful day for a hike now, is it? Ain’t technology a lifesaver?
So, next time you were, by any chance, to think of playing Bear Grylls, remember: never underestimate the tech of tomorrow. This is no Hollywood sci-fi. It’s a real solution to a real problem, for anyone foolhardy enough to find themselves lost out there. And remember, no matter how alone you feel out there, you’ll always have a drone finding its way to you. Heaven forbid it should miss you due to the ceaseless chatter of instructions.
Remember, in the words of the wise, technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories. And trust me, being found by an AI-enabled drone is a story you want to tell! Even if it’s based on a precarious situation, who minds, right? It’s thrilling nonetheless. So, brave the wilderness, and leave the rest to the mighty drone-saviors.