The field trial debriefing was held on May 21, 2009. We were missing Bryan Morse, Mike Roscheck, and Daniel Thornton from the labs, and Nathan Rasmussen, Brian Buss, and Ron Zeeman from the set of volunteers. Hopefully, they will post their comments here.

Must have Technologies

We focused our discussion on identifying key missing pieces. A summary is below:

• Ground searchers need more and better information. This includes

  * Reliable GPS information in a format other than just coordinates (e.g., text)
  * Information to support path planning (what's the best approach direction, what formation should the team of searchers use)
  * Information about the location of the object (object is on a south-facing slope near ...)
  * A picture of the object and its surroundings would be very useful.
  * With the delay between when the UAV finds an object of interest and when the ground searchers arrive, there needs to be  a way to get updated information from base camp to ground searchers after, say, a 20 minute delay.

• Video analysts need better information. This includes

  * Secondary video reviewers who can pause, rewind, and fast forward video.
  * A better solution for having the video antenna track the UAV's signal
  * More and longer cables to allow sharing of video between multiple people
  * A better camera on the UAV -- higher resolution

• Coordination of UAV operator, video analysts, and ground searchers needs to improve. This includes

  * Reconciling UAV operator interface and video analyst GPS units
  * Client-server architecture with ground searchers being able to call-up and annotate information from base camp

• Transfer to real search needs more attention. This includes

  * Increasing range of the UAV for realistic searches
  * Improving the UAV's ability to do systematic search over rougher terrain at night, in bad weather, etc.
  * Finding a way to get Utah County Search people to see the UAV and suggest improvements (perhaps take it to one of their training exercises).