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Introduction to the model

Banner image for Human Detection (Drone Imagery)

Human life is precious and in the event of any unfortunate occurrence, highest efforts are made to safeguard it. To provide timely aid or undertake extraction of humans in distress, it is critical to accurately locate them. There has been an increased use of drones to detect and track humans in such situations. Drones are used to capture high-resolution images during search and rescue purposes. It is possible to find survivors from drone feed, but it requires manual analysis. This is a time-taking process and is prone to human errors.

This model can detect humans by reviewing drone imagery and can draw bounding boxes around the location. This model is trained on IPSAR and SARD datasets where humans are on macadam roads, in quarries, low and high grass, forest shade, and Mediterranean and Sub-Mediterranean landscapes. Deep learning models are capable of learning complex semantics and can produce superior results. Use this deep learning model to automate the task of detection, reducing the time and effort required.

License requirements

To complete this workflow, the following licenses are required:

  • ArcGIS DesktopArcGIS Image Analyst extension for ArcGIS Pro
  • ArcGIS EnterpriseArcGIS Image Server
  • ArcGIS OnlineArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online

Model details

This model has the following characteristics:

  • Input—High-resolution (1–5 centimeters) individual drone images or an orthomosaic is used as input.
  • Output—A feature class containing detected humans is output.
  • Compute—This workflow is computationally intensive, and a GPU with minimum CUDA compute capability of 6.0 is recommended.
  • Applicable geographies—The model is expected to work well in Mediterranean and Sub-Mediterranean landscapes but can also be used in other areas.
  • Architecture—This model uses the FasterRCNN model architecture implemented in ArcGIS API for Python.
  • Accuracy metrics—This model has an average precision score of 0.822 for human class.

Access and download the model

Download the Human Detection (Drone Imagery) pretrained model from ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. Alternatively, access the model directly from ArcGIS Pro, or consume it in ArcGIS Image for ArcGIS Online.

  1. Browse to ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World.
  2. Sign in with your ArcGIS Online credentials.
  3. Search for Human Detection (Drone Imagery) and open the item page from the search results.
  4. Click the Download button to download the model.

    You can use the downloaded .dlpk file directly in ArcGIS Pro, or upload and use it in ArcGIS Enterprise. Additionally, you can fine-tune the pretrained model if necessary.

Release notes

The following are the release dates and notes:

DateNotes

January 2022

First release of Human Detection (Drone Imagery)

February 2023

Second release of Human Detection (Drone Imagery)