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If you were lost at sea / in the wilderness, would you trust your safety and eventual return to a machine learning model picking up your body heat? I know I'd w

If you were lost at sea / in the wilderness, would you trust your safety and eventual return to a machine learning model picking up your body heat? I know I'd want actual people in the aircraft.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
You can do both. Predator/Reaper/Global Hawks [1] [2] working alongside human aircraft, deployed from land or aircraft carrier. If you don't trust the ML, have humans in the Vegas desert watching the feed. I imagine military sensor platforms are very good for identification of humans. > Five Reapers can provide 36 hours of combined surveillance coverage in Afghanistan with individual sorties lasting up to 16 hours; a further five vehicles increases this to 72 hours For reference Afghanistan is roughly 251k square miles in size. Ten Reapers to cover 251k square miles for 72 hours at a time. Caveat, I have not done the math what the O&M costs are per hour for such a drone fleet. Alternatively (or in concert?), Planet Labs supports 50cm resolution, and you can buy their imagery with a credit card. They are imaging almost the entire Earth daily (although they might exclude oceans? I imagine for the right price, they'll retask or capture a grid on demand). [3] [4] It's not heat sensing, but there might be signal to be found. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper [2] https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2203962/global-hawks-return-to-yokota-to-provide-continuous-support-to-joint-partners-a/ https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/220396... [3] https://www.planet.com/why-planet/ https://www.planet.com/why-planet/ [4] https://www.planet.com/pulse/more-spectral-bands-50cm-global-analytics-change-detection/ https://www.planet.com/pulse/more-spectral-bands-50cm-global...
- 7952 6y ago
  The sky is cloudy a lot of the time which limits the effectiveness of satellite imagery.
throwaway5752 6y ago
I have been involved in lower grade search efforts. This is not either/or, this is supplemental. If you've never been in a scenario, particular with children, time is of the essence particular with temperature or terrain hazards. Time is the enemy, and the goal of this would be reduce time to cover a search area. If you find it interesting, https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search-and-rescue-works https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search... is a good read.

If you were lost at sea / in the wilderness, would you trust your safety and eventual return to a machine learning model picking up your body heat? I know I'd want actual people in the aircraft.

toomuchtodo 6y ago

You can do both. Predator/Reaper/Global Hawks [1] [2] working alongside human aircraft, deployed from land or aircraft carrier. If you don't trust the ML, have humans in the Vegas desert watching the feed. I imagine military sensor platforms are very good for identification of humans. > Five Reapers can provide 36 hours of combined surveillance coverage in Afghanistan with individual sorties lasting up to 16 hours; a further five vehicles increases this to 72 hours For reference Afghanistan is roughly 251k square miles in size. Ten Reapers to cover 251k square miles for 72 hours at a time. Caveat, I have not done the math what the O&M costs are per hour for such a drone fleet. Alternatively (or in concert?), Planet Labs supports 50cm resolution, and you can buy their imagery with a credit card. They are imaging almost the entire Earth daily (although they might exclude oceans? I imagine for the right price, they'll retask or capture a grid on demand). [3] [4] It's not heat sensing, but there might be signal to be found. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper [2] https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/2203962/global-hawks-return-to-yokota-to-provide-continuous-support-to-joint-partners-a/ https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/220396... [3] https://www.planet.com/why-planet/ https://www.planet.com/why-planet/ [4] https://www.planet.com/pulse/more-spectral-bands-50cm-global-analytics-change-detection/ https://www.planet.com/pulse/more-spectral-bands-50cm-global...

7952 6y ago
The sky is cloudy a lot of the time which limits the effectiveness of satellite imagery.

throwaway5752 6y ago

I have been involved in lower grade search efforts. This is not either/or, this is supplemental. If you've never been in a scenario, particular with children, time is of the essence particular with temperature or terrain hazards. Time is the enemy, and the goal of this would be reduce time to cover a search area. If you find it interesting, https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search-and-rescue-works https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search... is a good read.