Smart Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (S-RPAS) for Real-Time Object Detection

University of the West of Scotland, Police Scotland, Thales UK, CENSIS

This research project is motivated by the requirements from Police Scotland in their highly desired real-world use cases of real-time detection of missing people to assist Search and Rescue teams in rural areas by leveraging Remotely Piloted Aircraft System (RPAS) based smart systems. The proposed solution named "DRex" has the following advantageous features: real-time object recognition, machine learning based and thus smart, adaptive and extensible, prototype based on real aircraft system, it is also a practical system for use in real world. The following video is obtained from the B5GHub (UWS) and highlights the achievements of the project.

The result of the project was broadcasted in national and international broadcast media such as BBC Scotland News (button below), BBC Reporting Scotland, BBC Radio, ​The Sun, Telecinco (Spain)​, 20Minutos (Spain)​, and VBOX7 (Bulgaria) and also Online Media such as ITPro, PoliceOracle, DIGIT, KBC, Silicon, ukauthority, insider, Myjoyonline, drapersolutions and so on.

BBC Report

This project is the winner of the "CeeD Industry Awards 2020" in the Innovation category. It is also a winner of "THE AWARDS 2020" managed by The Times in the category "Knowledge Exchange/ Transfer Initiative of the Year".