Rad Drones

Context:

With increasingly rapid climate change, it has become evident more and more Australians will experience extreme weather events that have the potential to displace and cause injury. The scale of some Australian river systems and the flat topography of inland Australia mean that rainfall events relatively close to the coastline of the Australian mainland will not only cause flooding where the rain was initially deposited but also may eventually cause flooding many hundreds or thousands of kilometers away.

Storms, and subsequent flooding events, in 2021 led to natural disaster declarations for 63 local government areas (LGAs) in New South Wales. And in 2022, 21 people lost their lives due to flooding along Australia’s east coast, in a storm which saw Southern Queensland and northern New South Wales (NSW) receiving more than a year’s worth of rainfall in a week. This saw mass power outages which resulted in losses of telecommunications services, with Byron Shire mayor Michael Lyon noting “telecommunication networks going down and being out for weeks during and post flood,” which also hampered inter-agency communication.

Introduction to Rad Drones:

With this in mind, our team developed a telecommunications system which aims to bridge the gap between those affected by floods to emergency personnel during these times when major mobile network providers are down.

Rad Drones is a network of radio mounted drones which connect flood victims to emergency response providers. Essentially, each water proofed drone is fitted with a collapsible antenna that, when extended, can be used to communicate in real time during flooding events via radio. Hence, the “rad” in “Rad Drones.”