An innovative technique for identification of missing persons in natural disaster based on drone-femtocell systems

The recent development of the IoT (Internet of Things), which has enabled new types of sensors that can be easily interconnected to the Internet, will also have a significant impact in the near future on the management of natural disasters (mainly earthquakes and floods) with the aim of improving effectiveness in research, identification, and recovery of missing persons, and therefore increasing the possibility of saving lives. In this paper, more specifically, an innovative technique is proposed for the search and identification of missing persons in natural disaster scenarios by employing a drone-femtocell system and devising an algorithm capable of locating any mobile terminal in a given monitoring area. In particular, through a series of power measurements based on the reference signal received power (RSRP), the algorithm allows for the classification of the terminal inside or outside the monitoring area and subsequently identify the position with an accuracy of about 1 m, even in the presence of obstacles that act in such a way as to make the propagation of the radio signal non-isotropic.