The problem
Search areas grow faster than searchers can walk them. A missing person in difficult terrain opens a 10 km² search box within hours; ground teams cover a fraction of it per day. Thermal aerial search multiplies coverage, but only if the aircraft can stay on task, detect automatically, and hand coordinates to teams on the ground.
What the application demands
- Endurance over the search box — hours on task, not minutes.
- Automatic thermal detection — a human staring at a thermal feed for hours misses targets; onboard detection flags candidates and holds position to confirm.
- All-weather readiness — aircraft that launch from a vehicle, in wind, at night.
- Communications relay — radio coverage for teams beyond the tactical network edge.
Recommended configuration
| Role | Product | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Wide-area search | YD-Voyager VTOL | 150 min on task covers the whole search box in one sortie |
| Hover & confirm | YD-Researcher 600 | Holds position over a candidate for confirmation and payload drop |
| Onboard computer | YD-Core NX16 | Runs thermal detection model and target geolocation |
Detection candidates are downlinked with RTK-derived coordinates as standard rescue coordination messages, so ground teams navigate to them directly.
