Aerial Guard

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Aerial Guard project comes to challenge common and outdated procedures on preventing and combating wildfires.

Drones equipped with AI systems like thermal optical cameras, 3D mapping can keep a consistent patrol above critical sites prone to wildfires. Helicopters are too expensive and sound polluting for wild life to patrol and can't capture enough information for the ground crew as it can't fly over smoke.

Drones can patrol large sites automatically and systemically, and send direct essential information to ground crews. With life streaming, first responders can efficiently lay an action plan while keeping people out of the danger zone. Further more, direct measurement of wind speed and temperatures can also help predict wildfire

expansion.

GOAL

An operational dashboard where forest guards, firefighters, or other related identities can operate patrols manually or autonomously.

This platform needs to collect and synthesise data for further analyses while maintaining an effortless and error free user flow.

Keeping a real time update of the drone flight hours and battery levels will be also essential to flight and maintenance planning.

WHY

Wildfires destroy every year hectares of nature and animals in Europe, knowing that most fires can be prevented and are not, it creates an unsettling feeling that more could and can be done if there is more support and investment in new technologies like drones.

AI supported Drones can find wildfires at beginning and controlling stages as well possible suspects of Arsen. According to Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e das Florestas (ICNF) 41% of the fires in Portugal in 2020 started by illegal debris burning and 27 % belonged to criminal onset of fire, makes that 68% of wildfires are preventable by the systematic use of intelligent Drones.

TARGET AUDIENCE

Either this interface is used by firefighters, forest guards or other identities, there are common uniting characteristics.

They are First Responders

They need a highly efficient interface that is easy to operate even during elevated stressful situations

They all do night shifts which will affects cognitive response

They might need to multitask at the same time they operate the dashboard

Understanding the possible challenges of the end user is fundamental to develop a product that works and can save lives and Nature.

KEY CHALLENGES

Aerial Guard project comes with challenges due the fact that is a case study the access to the target audience can be difficult; those who operate drones on a daily basis or manage and command first response security scenes are not usually willing to join student projects on their spare time.

RESEARCH PROJECT DETAILS

USER INTERVIEWS

For this case study I only had the opportunity to talk with two people from the Target Audience. Usually the ideal number of people to interview varies between four and six but due the nature of this student project, I performed two interviews with two Forests Guards that kindly accepted to talk about their jobs, concerns and pain points.

The interviews were done remotely and one of the two interviews was allowed to be recorded for personal further study.

The goal was to understand exactly what information is difficult to collect before calling the first responders.

To my understanding this information is crucial to lay down the action plan, however it is also one of the hardest to collect without any drones. Wildfires are reported by citizens and forest guards; but none of them have a complete information to give to the Firefighters.

USER JOURNEY MAP

PROBLEM STATEMENTS

I could vastly understand during the interviews that there is a general frustration from the forests guards regarding their working tools. A lot lays out of their hands and their dedication is not enough to be able to protect Nature areas.

I wrote down some problem statements that were mentioned by both forest guards during the interviews.

PLATFORM NEEDS

I ran a second remote meeting with the forest guards. This time I wanted to have a casual talk to understand how they would verbalise their expectations if Aerial Guard would come one day to life.

There was a strong interesse on automation of patrol flights, as well a strong focus on the possibility to fly right away a drone in case of emergency.

One forest Guard mentioned the trouble of paper work that nowadays is still not digitalised; from reports to evidence material; the system needs a space where all information would be available to share with the authorities. A platform with a sharable and updated Archive.

INITIAL DESIGN CONCEPTS

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

WIREFRAMES

USABILITY STUDY

With a low-fidelity Prototype I ran a usability study with volunteers. The previously interviewed forest guards were unable to participate, so I collected five people willing to test my prototype.

I gave four tasks to be done under eight minutes. The time scarcity created an atmosphere of stress, which was important to me to see how intuitive and effortless the information architecture was.

For this case study I focused on the fact that the end users would be under occasionally a lot of pressure while combating wildfires.

The user tasks were:

USABILITY STUDY´S RESULTS

All tasks were performed under eight minutes, without error. The volunteers however disliked having a time frame to accomplish the tasks. This stress level was necessary to test as the end user will be dealing at times with even higher levels of stress.

I concluded the usability tests and proceed for the Visual Design of the platform.

HIGH FIDELITY PROTOTYPE

CONCLUSION

Aerial Guard was a particular enjoyable project to work on has I have always been touched by the service drones can give us. It's so exciting to see this technology evolving and becoming more casual than special.

There are still many things drones cannot substitute for now, but drone can help preventing serious damage and save many lives, not only from crew members but from civilians and animals.

It is with hope and joy that I close this case study. Hope for a safer future and Nature preservation, and joy for in a way or another contribute to this amazing tool that Drones are.