An application of swarm of quadcopters for searching operations

Abstract The search and rescue (SAR) operations belong to urgent types of work. One of their tasks is saving people under challenging conditions (including emergency or natural disasters). Currently, professional salvors, volunteers and air assets are most often engaged in these operations. However, such an approach has its disadvantages: wide coverage of areas requires a large number of people, and helicopters engagement (or other types of SAR aircraft) results in a heavy financial cost. Thus, the need for researching other ways for carrying out SAR operations emerges; these new approaches may reduce their cost and time frame, simultaneously saving the quality of SAR operations. This article considers the ability of using a swarm of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) for skiptracing (searching for missing persons). We give the analysis of existing decisions and offer the concept. The advantages of the proposed concept and algorithm of proceeding are described below.