Finestrat hosts a mountain rescue drill with drone units and Artificial Intelligence programs

The Puig Campana has today been the scene of simulations to search for missing people in the mountains with drone technology and Artificial Intelligence programs. They are the latest technologies applied to mountain safety.
This drill is part of the events on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Local Police of Finestrat and has had the participation of 15 professionals including Firefighters of Alicante city, Firefighters of the Provincial Consortium and the agents of the Finestrat Police force, and the distributor of the ASD Drones programs.

The practices began at around 9:00 a.m. from the Command Post, located in the Font del Molí, at the foot of Puig Campana.
In the air, 3 drones, one from each unit.
In the mountains, 6 decoys to detect, locate and practice rescue.
In the simulation, each drone inspects the mountain areas and performs 2 types of search: a visual one through the images captured by its camera and an automatic search, more innovative, through the application of Artificial Intelligence programs such as LOC8. “The program detects a garment made by a human being, or a certain color, or a certain shape… and sends alerts that allow us to locate the lost person, in this case the decoy.”
They were accompanied in this day of practical exercises by the mayor of Citizen Security, Beatriz Quintillán and the Councilor for New Technologies and Modernization, Héctor Baldó.

In the words of the councilor, Beatriz Quintillán, “from the Local Police we have been making use of the aerial surveillance unit for mountain rescues for several years. We have already intervened in several real cases. In fact, this device was key to recently locating two hikers lost in Puig Campana. He did this by using thermal cameras that detected his body temperature at night. The drone has also guided people lost at night off the slopes with its spotlights until they recover the path and can descend on their own feet. It has a public address system and a load capacity of up to 4 kg, which allows objects such as water bottles to be thrown. It is one of the clearest examples of technology at the service of safety, in this case in the mountains. And the drills serve as preparation to coordinate the different emergency personnel when it comes to adopting the most appropriate protocol in a real situation. So we are very grateful, from Finestrat, to the Firefighters for their involvement in this drill”.

To provide Finestrat with these new technologies, the City Council has the support of European Next Generation EU funds. Of Action 14 for the Improvement of Puig Campana emergency systems (rescue drone), the supply contract for the acquisition of drones for the Local Police has an amount of €60,48790, of which €49,990.00 come from European funds and €10,397.90 from municipal own funds.