DROPEX: Disaster Rescue Operations and Probing using EXpert drones

Disasters, both natural and man-made, pose significant risks to human life and infrastructure, necessitating swift and efficient search and rescue (SAR) operations. Traditional SAR methods often struggle to access hazardous areas, resulting in delayed responses and increased risk to rescuers. These methods are unable to run automated simultaneous rescues which lead the operations to face challenges such as difficulty in quickly assessing damage, locating survivors, and delivering aid. This paper address the problem by proposing a autonomous swarm of drones framework which improves the response time as well as increases accessibility zone of the rescue operation. The proposed framework DROPEX, is an autonomous UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) which employs a dual-dome architecture with surveillance drones to detect individuals in distress and payload drones to deliver aid. This framework ensures rapid deployment, accurate navigation, and efficient data transmission in disaster-stricken areas while minimizing the need for manual intervention. The drones are able to recognise the victims in need using object detection models such as YOLO and Detection Transformer (DETR) with thermal vision. By using Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRaWAN) and object detection models, the drones are able to reduce the response time and increase accessibility. The main focus is on creating a robust, scalable, and economical system to enhance the speed, efficiency, and effectiveness of disaster rescue operations.