{"id":650,"date":"2026-05-21T09:03:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=650"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:03:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T09:03:26","slug":"coconino-county-uses-ai-powered-drones-to-enhance-search-and-rescue-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=650","title":{"rendered":"Coconino County uses AI-powered drones to enhance search and rescue operations"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FLAGSTAFF, AZ (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 The Coconino County Sheriff\u2019s Office is using autonomous technology and training its own artificial intelligence models to improve search and rescue operations in northern Arizona.<\/p>\n

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Deputy Paul Clifton, the Assistant Search and Rescue Coordinator, said the technology helps process large amounts of drone data that would be unrealistic for humans to review manually when time is of the essence.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs opposed to looking at thousands of photographs with the human eye that fatigues in 10 minutes, we\u2019re leveraging automation tools,\u201d Clifton said.<\/p>\n

Pixel detection software analyzes drone imagery<\/h3>\n

Once a drone flies over a search area, the department uses a program called LOC8 to analyze the footage. The software examines drone imagery pixel by pixel to identify abnormalities in natural environments.<\/p>\n

The software can search for specific colors based on what a missing person was last seen wearing. It even accounts for different shades of light reflecting off objects, Clifton said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe it reduces the number of photos you have to look at from a thousand down to twenty,\u201d Clifton said. \u201cYou can say, I don\u2019t care about blue or yellow or anything. I\u2019m looking for red because we believe that that\u2019s what the person was last seen wearing.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the software detects an item that\u2019s worthy of a closer look, it gives searchers a precise GPS location to find it.<\/p>\n

Drones equipped with AI obstacle avoidance<\/h3>\n

Coconino County has been using drones since 2018. They now use the latest versions of Skydio drones that have AI-powered obstacle avoidance using six onboard cameras.<\/p>\n

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The system creates a sphere of vision that prevents crashes, even in areas with poor GPS signals, such as canyons, Clifton said.<\/p>\n

Training custom AI models<\/h3>\n

The Coconino County Sheriff\u2019s Office is working with a company in Scotland to develop AI models that are finely tuned for Northern Arizona\u2019s unique environment. The technology can re-analyze video from past flights and retrain the model to better identify targets in the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cNorthern Arizona versus Southern Arizona, the context, the environments are very different,\u201d Clifton said. \u201cAnd the ability to train models that work in your environment is super important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clifton said they\u2019re still testing the custom training feature, but their work to fine-tune models could be useful for other public safety departments operating in similar environments.<\/p>\n

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Coconino County is using drones, autonomous tech and custom AI models to help speed up search and rescue efforts across northern Arizona.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":649,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-650","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"yoast_head":"\nCoconino County uses AI-powered drones to enhance search and rescue operations - Tucson Moving Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/tucsonmovingreport.com\/?p=650\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Coconino County uses AI-powered drones to enhance search and rescue operations - 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