A Fully Autonomous Search and Rescue System Using Quadrotor UAV

Abstract

In order to deal with critical missions a growing interest has been shown to the UAVs design. Flying robots are now used fire protection, surveillance and search & rescue (SAR) operations. In this paper, a fully autonomous system for SAR operations using quadrotor UAV is designed. In order to scan the damaged area, speeds up the searching process and detect any possible survivals a new search strategy that combines the standard search strategies with the probability of detection is developed. Furthermore the autopilot is designed using an optimal backstepping controller and this enables the tracking of the reference path with high accuracy and maximizes the flying time. Finally a comparison between the applied strategies is made using a study case of survivals search operation. The obtained results confirmed the efficiency of the designed system.