Nano Drone-based Indoor Crime Scene Analysis

TL;DR

This paper explores the use of a nano drone equipped with AI and computer vision for automated indoor crime scene analysis, focusing on tasks like evidence gathering and blood analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a prototype nano drone capable of performing key crime scene tasks with notable accuracy, filling a gap in automated indoor forensic analysis.

Findings

Drone achieves 75% success in scene access

Drone achieves 85% accuracy in evidence mapping

Drone achieves 80% success in blood smear analysis

Abstract

Technologies such as robotics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Computer Vision (CV) can be applied to crime scene analysis (CSA) to help protect lives, facilitate justice, and deter crime, but an overview of the tasks that can be automated has been lacking. Here we follow a speculative prototyping approach: First, the STAIR tool is used to rapidly review the literature and identify tasks that seem to have not received much attention, like accessing crime scenes through a window, mapping/gathering evidence, and analyzing blood smears. Secondly, we present a prototype of a small drone that implements these three tasks with 75%, 85%, and 80% performance, to perform a minimal analysis of an indoor crime scene. Lessons learned are reported, toward guiding next work.