A drone developed by researchers from Deventer-based Saxion University of Applied Sciences can find persons. Not only living persons, but also bodies that have already been buried in the ground years ago.
The makers claim they are the first in the world to combine, improve and converge all possible technologies - from thermal cameras and multispectral cameras to ground-based radar - under a drone. In an interview with AD.nl, Jaap Knotter, lecturer in advanced forensic technology at the university of applied sciences, says: "You can imagine places in disasters where search dogs cannot go. This is a robot that we read real-time." In doing so, it does not matter whether a body is dead or alive. Even bodies that have been underground for years can be detected.
Collapsed buildings
According to Knotter, the technology will soon be useful and usable all over the world, for example in collapsed buildings after an earthquake. He cites the example of the recently collapsed car park in Waddinxveen. Only after the building was secured, hours later, could it be determined that no one was injured. "Our drone had then already seen if and where there were injured people," he says in the AD article.
The researchers first conducted a year of exploratory research, a research project started last week. This involves several Saxion courses and external parties. The police are also partners in the investigation. The next two years will be used to refine the technique and make it ready for use in practice.
Anne Faber
The East Netherlands police and the National Unit have already been using the drone for a year, it is being tested in detection. According to Knotter, there is increasing demand for the drone, especially for analysing traffic flows. It was during the search for Anne Faber that Knotter came up with the idea of doing more research into using his drone for detection purposes. "I saw the human line search for Anne and thought: this has to be different," he told the AD. According to him, that way of searching disturbs important traces. His drone tracks people on body blackening, even if a body has been lying there for some time. "Then all kinds of processes start working in a body and the temperature rises again, depending on the state of decomposition. If we have properly examined all the variables of that, we can find a lot. Down to bodies that have been missing for years: the grass is literally greener and with a mobile ground radar you can find disruption of the ground.''
According to Knotter, the drone could also have determined a fortnight ago that the ground where searched for Willeke Drost in Drenthe had never been disturbed. "That's what you use archaeological technology with ground radar for. That expensive digging operation would then not have been necessary."
Source: AD.nl
Photo is for illustration purposes (Pixabay)
