Aerial AI project aims to save lives on the battlefield

Funded by EPSRC, ATRACT (A Trustworthy Robotic Autonomous system to support Casualty Triage) will see the development of a flying drone that can assist and speed up battlefield triage. The £850,000 project concludes in 2026.

Ardhendu Behera, Professor of Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Edge Hill, explained that frontline army medics are often required to monitor multiple casualties and prioritise them based on the severity of injuries. Consequently, there is an urgent unmet need for enhancing casualty survival in a warzone where conventional helicopter evacuations are not possible, due largely to an abundance of cheap, accurate shoulder-launched ground-to-air missiles .

The project will focus on four main objectives that represent major innovations in the use of AI and RAS (robotics autonomous systems).

The first is to develop advanced sensors so that ATRACT can accurately search for injured soldiers using visual and thermal imaging data while still manoeuvring over and around challenging terrain.