Mission Ready

Testing search-and-rescue drones that may soon save lives.

- Romeo Durscher

I had always envisioned that drone technology could be used in first responder situations, but for that to really happen, the technology had to mature a little more. In late 2014, at the brink of the release of the Phantom 3, I realized that now the time was right to put the ball in motion and start learning about the needs of first responders. My plan was to get a real understanding of how a firefighting or search and-rescue team would utilize a drone and what their challenges were. Through that process, I planned to collect valuable feedback and, internally at DJI, discuss and create solutions to some of the problems we might come across. I quickly realized that our software development kit (SDK) would be a key element in providing a solution to a specific issue.

To collect helpful data, we decided to organize several training scenarios and observe the people who would be using drones in a real-life search-and-rescue operation. And some of these test scenarios allowed us to also get more insight into tactical executions. A big area of interest was to understand the needs of mountain search and rescue and mountaineering. We connected with Black Channel, an Irish team of experts in statistics, mathematics, data collection, social research, unmanned aircraft system (UAS) operations, and alpine rescue.

MOUNTAIN SEARCH AND RESCUE ON ADAMELLO GLACIER