In September, ASL’s fixed-wing team participated in the final land-based Search-and-Rescue demonstration of the EU-funded ICARUS project in Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium. Aerial robots, including ASL’s long-endurance AtlantikSolar UAV, where tasked to perform mapping and inspection missions in order to support ground robots and the Belgian B-FAST first response team in their relief efforts. Our UAVs stayed airborne for around 4 hours, all while providing live imagery of the disaster area to ground-based relief teams and the interested public. A video of the event is shown below, further information about the event can be found here.

Two months earlier, i.e. in July, ASL’s UAVs had the chance to perform their first maritime Search-and-Rescue operation in Lisbon, Portugal. Again part of the ICARUS project, our aerial robots were used to perform aerial mapping as well as to detect victims from a boat disaster in the Atlantic Ocean. A video of the activity is shown below, more information about the event can be found here.