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Loc8 software can analyze drone photos to help locate missing people

Drones have helped to save people’s lives in many cases. Earlier this year DJI reported that in 2017, 65 people had been rescued with the help of drones and that 124 people around the world were saved with drone assistence. These numbers are undoubtedly even higher now. Search and rescue drones are often outfitted with infra-red or thermal cameras to help find missing people. However, that is not always the case. Often times, the drones use their regular cameras to take photos or a large area in which people have gotten lost. The challenge then becomes, how do you sift through thousands and thousands of aerial photos looking for that one missing individual? This is where Loc8’s software comes into play.  Loc8 software can go through thousands of images, much faster than is humanly possible, to locate the few pixels that might represent a missing person. This could be very exciting software indeed and may go a long to way to help find missing persons faster.

Loc8 Software Demonstration to hold at the NTSB Training Academy

Revolutionary image scanning software, Loc8, to be displayed for the first time at the NTSB Training Academy

The first ever public demonstration of the Revolutionary Image Scanning Software for SAR, Loc8, will be held at the NTSB Training Academy on Friday, December 7, 2018. Loc8 Revolutionary Image Scanning Software for SAR, designed to ease the process of finding missing persons, subjects and items by autonomously searching images. The will also double as the official launch of the scanning software, showing the world its amazing features and benefits to search and rescue operations.

Search and rescue missions are often disrupted and sometimes end in futility due to the impossibility of humans to physically scan hundreds of aerial images searching for a small piece of information. In addition to expending lots of time and other such resources that consequently elongates the operations, fatigue often sets in, this explains why many such operations end without achieving the desired result. Loc8 is, however, looking to change this narrative by making search and rescue operations more effective by using the latest technologies.

Loc8 aims to solve quite a number of problems associated with the use of drones to help search and rescue/recovery missions across the Globe. One of such problems is drone pilots do not really offer a systematic approach to searching for people with the other problem being the difficulty in public safety officers to come through thousands of photos looking for maybe 1 or 2 pixels to find a life. These problems are effectively considered and taken care of with the introduction of Loc8.

Loc8 aims to improve on the effectiveness of drone search by allowing for an autonomous search of images to find missing people. The software searches color palettes in the images to identify potential “hits,” subsequently identifying the point and navigating the user to the location of the hit. The concept will definitely change the way rescue operations are done forever, not only in the United States but across the globe.

Loc8 software has already been used to find stolen vehicles, clues, and evidence. Attendees at the event will enjoy seeing how the software is being used to locate dummies at the NTSB training academy field next door to the demonstration, consequently allowing officers undertaking search and rescue missions can get the best from their operations.

The demonstration to be held at the NTSB training academy is a free event open to only citizens of the United States of America and is scheduled to run from 4 to 5 pm.

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Avatar for Haye Kesteloo Haye Kesteloo

Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at DroneDJ, where he covers all drone related news and writes product reviews. He also contributes to the other sites in the 9to5Mac group such as; 9to5Mac, 9to5Google, 9to5Toys and Electrek. Haye can be reached at haye@dronedj.com or @hayekesteloo