Potential uses for UAVs include inspecting power lines, cooling towers and bridges, or monitoring crops.

CSIRO oversees rescue of ‘Outback Joe’

Reference: 08/169

In an ultra-modern take on a St Bernard bringing brandy to stranded skiers, tomorrow pilotless aircraft will drop water to someone ‘lost’ in the outback.

• 22 September 2008

The outback is near Kingaroy airport in Queensland and the person is a mannequin, but the unmanned airborne vehicles (UAV) are real. It’s all part of the 2008 UAV Challenge – Outback Rescue, which CSIRO’s experts in autonomous robots are helping judge.

Going beyond remote control, UAV’s rely on computers, sensors and the global positioning system (GPS) to figure out how to perform tasks given to them by a human operator.

One of the richest UAV competitions in the world, the UAV Challenge is an initiative of the Australian Research Centre for Aerospace Automation (ARCAA, a partnership between CSIRO and Queensland University of Technology), the Queensland Government and Boeing Australia Limited.

Participants in the open competition have an hour to fly up to five nautical miles (approximately nine kilometres), search four square nautical miles (over ten square kilometres) for ‘Outback Joe’, drop a 500 millilitre bottle of 'life saving' water close by him then return to the airport.

“The UAV Challenge helps promote the significance of UAV’s to Australia,” said CSIRO’s Dr Michael Bruenig, Deputy CEO of ARCAA.

“Here we’re showing how UAV’s could save lives by quickly and cost effectively delivering medical supplies to critically ill patients in remote areas, but UAV’s could also inspect powerlines and other infrastructure, monitor stock, keep an eye on water use or traffic flow and then there are defence applications in border security and surveillance,” he said.

CSIRO’s research focuses on the civilian applications for autonomous vehicles such as our submarine, helicopter, ground vehicles and robots for mining.

“Since last year’s competition, we’ve already seen increased participation of regional Australia in high-tech industry,” Dr Bruenig said. “We particularly value having a category for high school students because it exposes them to potential career opportunities in this area in Australia.”

The 2008 UAV Challenge - Outback Rescue, 23 to 25 September 2008, Kingaroy airport, Queensland.

Download images at: CSIRO oversees rescue of ‘Outback Joe’.

Read more media releases in our Media section.