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SenseLab – Spatial Informatics research group of the Geodesy and Geomatics Engineering Laboratory has been selected within the finalists of the prestigious Drones for Good Award and won the 3rd place at the international award category. The second edition of the Drones for Good Award gains momentum as one of the most popular technology podiums in the world. During the three-day event, 40 semi-finalists in both the International and National competitions presented live demonstrations of their projects in front of an expert panel of international judges. The UAE Drones for Good Award and the UAE AI & Robotics Award for Good received more than 1,600 projects from 165 countries. There was remarkable participation from outstanding international universities such as Harvard, MIT, Oxford, London Business School, RMIT, University of Toronto and Seoul National University.
SaveME project of the SenseLab Research Group is a novel idea that addresses health & humanitarian aid, civil security, elder and handicap assistance through the rapid use of a user’s smartphone transformed into a drone. Thus, even when there is no mobile phone service in the area of need the drone may fly to acquire connection, automatically inform Authorities of the situation and tracked position of its owner, or even fetch required medicine. Additionally, in case of a natural hazard the “smartdrone” may scan the area providing sensor maps (e.g. temperature, pollution) and define escape routes.
Every hiker or group of travelers, every family, every person with health problems can easily carry a small drone case that will host their mobile phone and perform emergency actions at a press of a button. As one can imagine, the applications and functionalities are limitless including health, civil protection, inspection in technical constructions, industrial infrastructure, ocean, environment, agriculture, biodiversity sectors, or even just for fun.
Technically, it involves swarm management, automated landing, crowd sourcing, three-dimensional mapping, thematic map generation, routing, etc. “We provide an easy to acquire and operate personalized product that we envision to be sold in all mobile phone stores as an accessory. We rapidly proceed in a person-centered rather than merely Agency-based crisis management era”.
Asst. Prof. Panagiotis Partsinevelos, Achilles Tripolitsiotis, Sarantis Kyritsis, Nikolaos Prokas, Stathis Bikos will be travelling to Dubai to demonstrate Save_ME project, supported by Andreas Pitsiladis, Angelos Antonopoulos and Theofilos Chanialakis who will remain in base.
