Abstract
Until recently, clandestine burial investigations relied upon witness statements to determine target search areas of soil and vegetation disturbance. Due to this, remote sensing technologies are increasingly used to detect fresh clandestine graves. However, despite the increased capabilities of remote sensing, clandestine burial searches remain resourcefully intensive as the police have little access to the technology when it is required. In contrast to this, Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology is increasingly popular amongst law enforcement worldwide. As such, this paper explores the use of digital imagery collected from a low cost UAV for the aided detection of disturbed soil sites indicative of fresh clandestine graves. This is done by assessing the unaltered UAV video output using image processing tools to detect sites of disturbance, therefore highlighting previously unrecognised capabilities of police UAVs. This preliminary investigation provides a low cost rapid approach to detecting fresh clandestine graves, further supporting the use of UAV technology by UK police.
Highlights
For the purposes of this study, a clandestine burial will be defined as the intentional concealment of complete or partial human remains, usually a victim of homicide [1]
The approach outlined in this paper only considers the detection of fresh clandestine graves through the detection of visual anomalies
The use of RGB equipped Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) as a method for aiding detection of disturbed soil sites seems promising. These initial results have highlighted the benefits of integrating UAV technology alongside traditional ground based search techniques to improve operational productivity
Summary
For the purposes of this study, a clandestine burial will be defined as the intentional concealment of complete or partial human remains, usually a victim of homicide [1]. With this in mind, the most common methods of body disposal include; covering (31.4%), burying (21%) and leaving in isolated places (14.2%) [2]. A two-fold search process firstly relies upon crucial planning and intelligence to determine a target search area to locate visual anomalies This is to ensure secondary search methods, such as line searches [9], cadaver dogs [10], probing [7] and geophysical techniques such as Ground
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