Pix4D React meets Indshine || Drones in Disaster Management

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are the go-to options in disaster management. They can provide real-time images of even the most inaccessible locations. Areas that are prone to large-scale disasters such as earthquakes and flooding benefit significantly from visual imaging and 3D mapping. Manned aircraft are often too expensive to use, satellite mapping does not meet high-resolution needs, and both take too much time during emergencies.

The use of drones to map disaster areas provide more significant advantages in costs and in rapid response times when compared to traditional methods. They generate high-resolution and 3D mapping, help in identifying hotspot areas that have sustained the most damage, and upload the data in real-time to coordinate relief efforts.

India Flying Labs (IFL) is the India chapter of the Flying Labs network, backed by WeRobotics (currently active in more than 25 countries). IFL is an open, collaborative network of individuals and organizations that came together to apply robotics, drones, and data for useful social applications such as conservation, disasters, healthcare, agriculture, and sustainable development. Their work is based on the Humanitarian UAV Code of Conduct.

Dr. Ruchi Saxena, Founder of Caerobotics Healthcare Solutions and Director of India Flying Labs, is actively engaged in creating an ecosystem for utilization of unmanned robotics in healthcare and disaster management in India, Nepal, and other Asia Pacific countries. She prefers empowering local teams with the knowledge, technologies, and opportunities so that they can solve their local challenges.

Dr. Ruchi has an exciting story to share regarding one of their initiatives in which the Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) and India Flying Labs built local drone data expertise for quicker disaster response.

Fig: High-resolution map (ortho) of village Meriema, Dimapur, India

Every year Nagaland receives very heavy rainfall, which has resulted in several natural calamities all over the state. Landslides and sinking zones have created immense damage to public infrastructure all over the state as they also caused the loss of life and property.

To mitigate these challenges state government seeks the help of the central government in the relief and rescue operations, distribution of essential relief material and to provide medical support to affected people. In times of emergency, delay in such activities risks the life of an individual.

Hence, NSDMA realized the need for local community support in making Nagaland resilient to disasters. They stressed the need to make a “Family Disaster Management Plan” so that every family in Nagaland is prepared for any disaster event.

To build the UAV Rapid Response Task Force for Disasters, NSDMA called up India Flying Labs to educate localites as well as their staff to understand on “How to use drone data for emergency response?”.

In response to this IFL has conducted a four-day ‘Drone Data Expert Workshop’ for 36 enthusiastic localites and disaster management professionals. The motive of the workshop was to introduce various applications of drone data in search and rescue, identification of land-sinking areas, landslides monitoring, earthquake preparation as well as enhance the decision making of government officials during a disaster emergency.

Fig: Glimpse of Drone Data Expert Workshop

The four-day workshop was divided into :
1. 1st day of the workshop started with the ‘World of Drones’ session, where IFL taught the fundamentals of flight using paper airplanes. This fun and familiar activity helped the participants understand how to operate a drone and how to employ them as data collection tools.

2. On the very next day, team IFL explained the basics of mapping and how to use Google Earth for planning drone missions. They also introduced participants to Picterra, an AI-based tool that simplifies counting elements in an image quickly. The teams then had a role-playing exercise to plan for the drone flights and learned about drone safety checklists and team coordination protocols.

3. The next day was flight day. After a week-long of fog and rain from Cyclone Bulbula, the teams greeted the bright sunny day ready to practice what they learned over the previous two days. Teams came back with the aerial data from the village Meriema and had a hands-on with experience with Pix4D and Drone Deploy for data processing. Keeping in mind that the rescue team often works in limited internet connectivity zones during a disaster, leads processing of drone data as a challenge. To eliminate this hurdle, they have introduced pix4D react to participants in which they can process the data offline and that too very fast.

4. Last but not least the teams had a live session with the Indshine team, where they learned about using Indshine for project collaboration, analysis, reporting, and sharing. Finally, they used Picterra for counting the houses, and by now, the team handled Picterra like pros! They went back to Google Earth to view the aerial maps and made a 3D walkthrough of the village. They also explored the use of Survae for viewing drone videos and then Open Aerial Maps and Open Street Maps.

This helped in making participants familiar with analyzing drone images & videos and using them for “before, during & after” emergencies. They used the Indshine tool to strengthen their collaboration with government officials and local teams even further. It is allowing officials to work remotely on the drone data and annotate points of interest like houses, hospitals, roads, open areas, etc.

Click on the above Nagaland state disaster management project to get hands-on experience.

Dr. Ruchi explains: Indshine is promoting the development of the cooperative ecosystem in the drone industry.

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