Research Symposium

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I'm a Computer Science major passionate about doing research in computer vision and machine learning.

The Use of Synthetic Media in Autonomous Aerial Search and Rescue

Abstract

According to the World Health Organization, drowning claims approximately 300,000 lives globally each year. Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) integrated with machine learning (ML) have shown promise in drowning victim search-and-rescue efforts. However, ML models depend heavily on diverse and annotated datasets, which are challenging to obtain due to financial and ethical constraints. This study evaluates the effectiveness of synthetic visual data, generated from 3D models and backgrounds, for training a YOLOv9 object detection model. The synthetic dataset, combined with real images, will be tested and compared to results from “The use of drones and a machine-learning model for recognition of simulated drowning victims—A feasibility study.” Model performance will be assessed based on recognition rates, detection accuracy, and combined ML-human identification accuracy.

Keywords: Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Unmmaned Autonomous Vehicle (UAV), Search and Rescue (SAR)