AI and thermal drones are helping find the lost in B.C.’s mountains

Every year, thousands of people walk, run, bike or ski in Vancouver’s iconic North Shore Mountains. 

But some of those trips don’t go according to plan. More than 100 people call North Shore Rescue every year because they got lost or injured in the dense and steep coastal rainforest. 

Locating the lost or missing can be a gruelling task.

North Shore Rescue, which says it is Canada’s busiest volunteer search and rescue (SAR) team, has been doing that since 1965. But combinations of emerging technology, like drones equipped with thermal imaging and artificial intelligence software, are helping it bring people to safety faster than ever. 

It’s a solution that combines the best of the needs of search and rescue and the capabilities of new tools on the market, said Grant Baldwin, a drone operator for North Shore Rescue (NSR). 

Subjects stick out “quite bright” at 60 to 90 metres in the air, he said. “You can see a person really clearly if you’re in the right spot.” 

His team still deploys its usual ground crews to rescue people. If needed, they use an all-terrain vehicle, snowmobile or helicopter.

But drone software gives searchers the ability to quickly scan hard-to-reach gullies, creeks or cliffs, he said.

Developing the functionality of the drones for use during a search has been in the works for years, with other members of the team acquiring their Transport Canada flying certification in the last 12 months. 

The gear has so far cost about $40,000, an amount drawn out of the donations NSR relies on to function.

Getting information to search crews

Baldwin said the technology has real potential to save many lives. 

It may have already saved a life.

In early December, North Shore Rescue was called to look for a missing hiker on Mount Seymour in North Vancouver after he failed to meet his friends in a car park near the trailhead. 

Baldwin remembers being on his last battery during the search that night and finally spotting the hiker with his drone fitted with thermal imaging software. 

He was about two kilometres away, but video from the rescue shows the hiker huddled under a tree on his side, trying to keep warm.  

“He was quite hypothermic. He had fallen in some creeks. It was about –6, so if the team hadn’t found him that night it would be more of a recovery,” Baldwin said. 

Some searches extend late into the night or early morning as volunteers whack their way through thick forest and rugged terrain. Being able to spot a subject with the drone’s software and send ground crews directly to those in need of rescue can save a lot of time, especially when a helicopter is not able to fly, said Baldwin. 

The software makes a huge difference. Looking down on the coastal rainforest without it is like looking down at thousands of tiny green circles with almost no space to see anyone in between, he said. 

But sometimes thermal imaging doesn’t always work very well. In the summer, heat from the sun can warm up rocks and tree tops too much for anything else to be visible.

That’s where special artificial technology, developed in Squamish B.C., could make a huge difference. 

The software, called Eagle Eyes, uses the camera from a search drone and combines it with artificial intelligence technology called computer vision, which in this case has been trained to see and detect anomalies in landscapes.

For instance, if a drone pilot scanned a search area at several hundred metres above the ground, the software would be able to detect movement or clothing from a person below, even if if they were less than a pixel on the screen. 

The feed from the drone’s camera is relayed back to the pilot in real time and a circle will hover over anything the software interprets as unusual. 

It works best when the person search crews are looking for is wearing bright clothing distinctly different from the surroundings.

It can see things that the human eye would struggle to detect, said creator Peter O’Connor. 

“It’s mainly looking at each pixel in the image and measuring how well it fits into the image, how well it fits into the colour distribution,” he said. 

“It helps get that that information into the map that the team is using as quick as possible so that they can act on it.” 

Baldwin is testing the technology for use on North Shore’s calls and hopes to integrate it into its response soon.

How drones are helping search teams find the lost

But he said no amount of innovation by the group can make up for people walking into the mountains unprepared.

“Don’t expect the drone to find you 100 per cent of the time,” he said. 

“I have flown over a subject and they heard it but I did not see them and they were rescued about 13 hours later. They said it was quite comforting to hear the drone over them.”