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Finestrat hosts a mountain rescue drill with drone units and Artificial Intelligence programs

 

Puig Campana has been the scene of search drills for missing people in the mountains with drone technology and Artificial Intelligence programs. They are the latest technologies applied to mountain safety.

This drill is part of the events on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Finestrat Local Police and has had the participation of 15 professionals including Alicante city firefighters, firefighters from the provincial Consortium and the agents of the Finestrat Police force, and the distributor of ASD Drones programs.

 

The practices began around 9:00 a.m. from the Command Post, located in Font del Molí, at the foot of Puig Campana.

In the air, 3 drones, one from each unit.
In the mountains, 6 decoys to detect, locate and practice rescu and in the simulation, each drone inspects the mountain areas and carries out 2 types of search: a visual one using the images captured by its camera and another automatic, more innovative search, through the application of Artificial Intelligence programs such as LOC8. "The program detects a garment made by a human being, or a certain color, or a certain shape... and sends alerts that allow us to locate the lost person, in this case the decoy."

They were accompanied on this day of practical exercises by the councilor for Citizen Security, Beatriz Quintillán, and the councilor for New Technologies and Modernization, Héctor Baldó.

 

In the words of the councilor, Beatriz Quintillán, “from the Local Police we have been using the aerial surveillance unit for mountain rescues for several years. We have already intervened in several real cases. In fact, this device was key to recently locating two hikers lost in Puig Campana. He did this by using thermal cameras that detected his body temperature at night. The drone has also guided people lost off-piste at night with its light sources until they regained the path and could descend on their own. It has a loudspeaker and a load capacity of up to 4 kg, which allows objects such as water bottles to be thrown. It is one of the clearest examples of technology at the service of safety, in this case in the mountains. And the drills serve as preparation to coordinate the different emergency personnel when adopting the most appropriate protocol in a real situation. So we are very grateful, from Finestrat, to the Firefighters for their involvement in this drill.”