The advantage of UAVs engineering at the Disasters’ Challenges

This document explains the future challenges of engineers to make the humanitarian actions more effective & efficient by using the emergent technologies in past disaster planning; search, rescue & support, mainly when the immediate access to the scene of the crisis is very difficult unless the information abouts damaged human is critical.

Humanitarian emergencies are always one of the most important “Engineering Tasks” as long as they are involved in different levels from forecasting, preparedness & planning, mitigation & prevention management to Post-Disaster Planning which will be described in this topic, by introducing the new technology of Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle UAV.

Definition of UAV: Unmanned Aircraft Vehicle, Unmanned Aircraft System, Drone..:

Is an ultralight aircraft manned by a remote control without any pilot onboard, can equipped by a diversity of sensors, thermal, RGB, Lidar… that can collect accurate data which is streamed immediately to ground units, to be proceed and help decision makers.

According to the” UK Search and Rescue Helicopter Statistics: Record Level Data, from April 2015 to September 2021”  that provides information on all Search and Rescue Helicopter taskings in the UK ( Helicopter Manned Aircraft System) ; there are 4 emergency tasking types which are :Pre-arranged transfer,  Rescue & recovery, Support , and Search operations(only), Over all of this years (2015 – 2021) , The Search Task represent 25% from all operations ,  this task can be improved by using UVS, so we can consider that this technology has already access to 25% to humanitarian emergency actions , and in the next stage to the support task by using the areal delivery operations.

 One of the most effective uses of this System was in Disaster Mapping in Malawi 2019 by UNICEF in collaboration with the Malawi Department of Disaster Management Affairs and the Red Cross, And in the Medical Aid Delivery in the Dominican Republic, 2019

The United Nations Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Technology Report in April 2021, talks about the opportunities that presented by UAVs in the future humanitarian actions, and recommended the collaborating investment in this field to avoid different challenges.

As a conclusion and as long as Engineers are totally Involved in Disasters’ Challenges, our investment may be to update Engineers regarding the use of this technology, and the most important preparing the next generation of some related engineering specialties as “UAV engineer” whom will include these technologies from the forecasting and planning stage to ensure the most effectiveness in emergency actions.

This investment can only be achieved through collaboration of most of Related organizations, Engineering Organizations, Aviation’s Authorities, Universities. And with this forum we can discuss a mid-time pilot project.

Keywords

Emerging technologies- humanitarian emergency-UAVs – search & rescue

Figure-1: UK S&R Helicopter Tasking type 2015-2022

Table-1: UK S&R Helicopter Tasking type statistics

References

1. Leonie Arendt-Cassetta and  Matthew United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), “FROM DIGITAL PROMISE TO FRONTLINE PRACTICE NEW AND EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN HUMANITARIAN ACTION” , April 2021,  p21-22.
2. UK Maritime Statistics, UK Search and Rescue Helicopter Statistics: Record Level Data, from April  2015.