| Name | Subgroup | |
|---|---|---|
| Sahana Asokan | sa1174@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Physical Data |
| Won Seok Chang | wc443@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Physical Data |
| Abhishek Chaudhuri | asc185@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Image Processing |
| Shantanu Ghosh | sg1247@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Image Processing |
| Srikrishnaraja Mahadas | ssm176@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Image Processing |
| Avnish Patel | asp230@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Location Data |
| Sri Sai Krishna Tottempudi | st729@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Physical Data |
| Vishal Venkateswaran | vv198@scarletmail.rutgers.edu | Obstacles |
Despite the best efforts of firefighters and other first responders, nearly seven people die each day due to fires. Every year fires on average destroy nearly $6.5 billion in property damages and cost 2500 people their lives. First responders then must risk their lives in order to figure out whether the structure is safe or not and to figure out where people are in the burning building in order to rescue them. Even with the floorplans of the building, during the events of fires, fires can result in unexpected circumstances such as collapsed structures, chemical spill, the possibility of explosions, or any other dangers. People can also even be trapped in unexpected places. The All-Purpose Emergency Response Drone proposal will be able to assist first responders in an effort to minimize the loss of life that occurs due to fires every year.
In order to reduce the loss of life that fires cause each year, our plan is to have a drone that first responders will be able to interact with through a user interface. The drone will be able to fly into burning buildings in an effort to find out where any survivors are trapped in the building. The drone will be able to use an infrared camera to locate possible survivors. It will also be enabled with sensors so it can detect obstacles in the building. The success of the device will be based on if it can detect where the people are trapped in the building. The user will probably define the success to be the number of people the device helped save as well. The business value of the define comes into effect with firefighters. The way the drone will work is that firefighters will deploy the drone and will be able to maneuver it using the remote controls. There will be a monitor for them to see what the drone is seeing. The monitor will also pin out the location of survivors on the floor plans. This will guide the firefighters in the process of detecting survivors and the dangers in the building. Utilizing the drone will reduce the number of lives that are endangered as firefighters will no longer need to explore every room in order to find people trapped in the building.
There are many steps involved in making sure the drone is completely ready for use in the field. The first step is to obtain a drone. We are in the process of getting the drone, which will take a few days. One basic component of the drone that needs to be altered would be the drone's maneuverability. Standard drones are capable of flight. However, since the drone will be used in extreme situations, it would need to be manipulated so it can move around and even dodge certain obstacles. This could be done with the addition of a few motors and sensors along with some changes to the code. The code for the project will be in Java. The motor and sensor components can be completed separately. This shouldn't take that long maybe a week or two. The camera component, which is using an infrared camera, is also rather simple. This is because the raspberry pi is compatible with an infrared camera. This will probably take a week to do so unless there is a lot of code that needs to be modified. The part that will probably take a while to figure out a way to store all the data the drone is getting from the burning building and analyze it. Depending on the scale and the possible scenarios that could be considered, this could easily take a few weeks.
Based on the type of work that will be involved in this project and the various skill sets of each group member, there are just enough members in this group to accomplish our goals. Since a majority of the group is proficient when it comes to programming, it is rather simple to divide up each component of the project into sub-groups and be able to work on multiple aspects at the same time. Having fewer people would make it rather tough to complete the project in an efficient manner, due to the amount of work involved. As mentioned earlier the success of our device will be based on its ability to navigate through various obstacles and locate possible survivors in emergency response situations.