Hacker News Reader

Comment by throwaway5752 | Hacker News Reader

Call this a freely given and viable but hard to monetize idea - this is a very tractable area for software and drones. Same with locating people in lost wilderness areas. You have a programmatic way to organize coverage areas, you have access to above-human audio and video capabilities, and it reduces the resources/time ratio that is critical in rescues.

This was the tragic and avoidable story that convinced me this was possible - https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/us/missing-hiker-geraldin...

There was a limited geographical footprint and coordinated, modestly sized fleet of quadcopters with mics and/or thermal imaging could probably cover 20 square miles/day. Same couple be applied with optical/higher altitude drones for people lost at sea. You could supplement sensors with basic face/voice recognition in less remote settings. You could supplement with something like Planet in more remote/ocean settings.

Does something like that exist already?

View on HN

The "search" part of search and rescue is a solved problem. There's no reason to go into the wilderness without a PLB in 2020.

PLBs cost around $300 [1], they have five+ year batteries, and they don't require a subscription. If you need to use it, you turn it on, it grabs a GPS lock and transmits your coordinates for about a day, during which at least one satellite will see your signal and downlinks all over the planet will log your location. It may still take some time for rescue services to get to you, but finding you will no longer be the primary concern.

If $300 is still too much, you can usually rent or borrow one for the duration of your trip. Just throw one in your backpack and consider yourself lucky if you never end up needing it.

The nature of emergencies means you don't know what you're going to run into. You could be lost, you could have a broken leg, you could have been bitten by something lethal, you could be treading water 100 miles offshore. You could have provisions for a month, or you could need a medevac ASAP.

If you actually have an emergency, do you want to sit around for a week and hope that you get noticed, or do you want rescue services all over the planet to have your exact coordinates within the hour?

Ten years ago these might have been newfangled novelty gadgets, but today they really should be considered required safety equipment if you're going into an area that's remote, or where there's a real possibility of veering off course. If you're sailing a boat or flying an airplane, they're usually legally required now too. They may not be mandated for hikers or backpackers, but don't be an idiot -- you need to have one.

Rescue services don't look for lines in the sand or messages in bottles anymore. The world spent over a billion dollars to get the Cospas-Sarsat program up and running, and the expected method for signaling distress in 2020 is by satellite. You should have the equipment to make a distress call if you're going to be in a position where it may be necessary.

Don't needlessly make things harder on yourself and on rescue workers by thinking that it's manlier to flash a mirror at an airplane. That can be your backup method, but not your primary.

[1] https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-400

If you use a PLB to get rescued, do you then owe a big check to the rescuing organization like when you call for an ambulance in the USA?

Yes, especially if the service calls a helicopter.

The criticism against these is they've become so common that people either get overconfident and hike out beyond their abilities, or people call for help on minor issues like they didn't pack enough water or they get a headache.

Actually, I think that only in cases where you showed extreme lack of preparedness will you get a bill.

Most SAR organizations really don't want to have someone not call them because of the cost. Or worse, delay calling them and end up with a more time-critical or more dangerous rescue situation.

https://www.facebook.com/NoChargeforRescue/

Corroborating the sister comment here—you are unlikely to be charged unless you do something grossly negligent—something like ignoring explicit warnings not to climb Mt. Whitney in adverse conditions and going unpermitted.

I can’t speak for what the policies are worldwide, but at least in the US (in particular California), you are very unlikely to be charged for the rescue services (medical costs are a different story). Usually the county is responsible for the SAR operation, which is typically carried out by volunteers. If you’re in a National Park, then it’s NPS. Again, they could fine you, but my understanding is that this is rare. Volunteers will even come looking for you for years after you’ve disappeared (https://www.climbing.com/people/vanished-the-mysterious-disa...).

Anecdote: I knew a (European) PCT hiker who was airlifted out of the Sierra. They were diabetic and had suffered a cut that for a healthy person would have been non-threatening. They were not charged anything. It would have been a shame if they hesitated due to fear of getting slapped with a bill.

Old but useful threads (and great forums in general—the HNs of backcountry travel):

https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/14464/

http://www.highsierratopix.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=893...

> The vast majority of searches I have been on have no medical component whatsoever - in fact, none of the searches in the past several years, whether I have been on them or not, have involved medical intervention. A few have involved finding remains, which allow families closure and to make claims on life insurance - a community service that makes creeping through manzanita picking up bone shards worthwhile. If my family was depending on the income from life insurance and I vanished - I'd hope search teams found what was left of me. Some searches are related to law enforcement activities and locate evidence. Some searches are urban, and locate Alzheimer's sufferers or small children lost in town. None of them costs anyone a dime, and we don't appreciate the perpetuation of the myth that anyone is charged because we don't want to see anyone delay getting help when it's clear someone is missing.”

> ”Which is why our search team has never and will never charge anything. We are a self supporting nonprofit organization. We buy our own gear, pay for our own training, and raise the funds to replace team gear. I just wrote a grant proposal to get us new gps units and will shortly submit another. Madera, Merced, Fresno, Tulare, Inyo and other counties are all independent agencies, nonprofits, and do not charge a cent.”

If the rescuing organization is going to ask you to pay for your helicopter flight, they're probably going to ask regardless of whether they got your location from a PLB ping or from "SOS" drawn in the sand.

If you don't use a PLB, you better hope they don't try to charge you for the search flights as well, which don't need to happen if you use a PLB.

But yeah, as the sibling comment mentioned, you'd better be serious if you decide to press the button. You're not summoning a taxi.

I know some PLBs have a $15,000 insurance coverage plan for life flights. Generally more expensive to get a helicopter rid e in the US however.

I'm not trying to take this discussion in a bad direction, but we're seeing a society-wide failure in the US to wear small pieces of cloth over our face to reduce the transmission of a serious illness. People frequently fail to prepare adequately even when given the means and opportunity. Search and rescue scenarios are not always for people that planned around getting lost and have a locator beacons on their person. I agree, if everyone had one, it would be ideal and would almost completely eliminate the need for what I described.

edit: rather than reply and extend the thread, I just wanted to say I strongly agree with you on the matter of PRBs and survival prep. I think you may have persuaded me to pick one up for day hikes.

I'm trying to fight the perception that PLBs are expensive specialty gadgets meant for professional explorers [1].

They should be considered as basic and as necessary as a life vest, seat belt, or bike helmet. You should not be backpacking on the Appalachian trail without one.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24065435

How would you feel about a $300 fee to use the national parks?

If a PLB is required in all but law then that's almost the same effect. IMO that kind of goes against the spirit of having national parks and other purposely undeveloped areas.

Sure it would be nice if everyone had one but I don't wanna make hiking and camping, which can be very cheap ways to recreate if you want them to be, instantly $300 more expensive.

I think this is more for serious wilderness hiking and camping, not a trek through a national park with designated campgrounds.

High quality backpacks and hiking boots are around $200, and tents are easily double that. If you’re going on hikes that pose a realistic chance of getting stranded, you’re probably pretty serious and already paying for premium equipment. In which case, another $300 for peace of mind shouldn’t be a dealbreaker.

The vast majority of people that visit national parks stay at campsites that are attached to parking lots, that have running water and bathroom facilities, and that have at least some cell reception. Many of these are attached to well marked, well traveled trails with amazing views that make for excellent all-day hikes. You don't need a PLB to visit one of these camp sites or hike some of these trails.

But if your off-the-grid campsite is a 30 hour hike from the nearest road, and half of that hike includes a mountain scramble and a trek across a frozen alpine lake, then I'm sorry, but you can't responsibly plan such a trip in 2020 and not carry a PLB.

Between your clothes, boots, jackets, shelter, backpack, food, fuel, cooking gear, and navigation equipment, you're likely carrying at least $1000 of equipment. You can figure out how to borrow a PLB.

Spending days flying circles around a vast wilderness where somebody might have gotten lost is expensive and time consuming and takes resources away from other people who might need them. It took 20 years to get Sarsat up and running and for PLBs to get cheap, and now rescue organizations all over the planet are asking you to please, for your sake, for theirs, and for the sake of other people who may also need emergency services, carry a goddamn PLB if you're going to go off the grid.

Contrary to popular belief, going out into the wilderness is not about eschewing all technology. You still need to be responsible, and today, for certain activities, that means carrying a tiny piece of emergency equipment at the bottom of your backpack that you hope to never have to touch.

I have (semi-)frequently gone “off-grid” far away from established trails, without carrying a PLB. Sometimes I’ve gone days without seeing another human. I have extensive training in wilderness navigation, and have always reviewed my itinerary with the rangers ahead of time.

In hindsight, I can see how this was a selfish decision.

This feeling has been nagging at me for a while, since I’ve had close calls in remote areas that would have jeopardized the inevitable SAR crews.

So, I’ll acquire a PLB and carry it on future trips. Thank you for the reminder.

That said, I think some of my hesitation in the past was rooted in this belief that PLBs were unreliable and mostly a nuisance due to the abuse by inexperienced hikers. Also, if you are in cell range (like on the majority of the AT), I believe that a phone is the superior device since you can communicate the severity of your emergency to emergency services and they can respond accordingly. I’d like to read more about this if you have some links:

> ”now rescue organizations all over the planet are asking you to please...carry a goddamn PLB”

> I believe that a phone is the superior device since you can communicate the severity of your emergency to emergency services and they can respond accordingly.

Agreed -- if you're able to get cell reception, and the emergency is not life-or-death time critical, you should try using the phone first.

> I’d like to read more about this if you have some links:

> > ”now rescue organizations all over the planet are asking you to please...carry a goddamn PLB”

Basically, the search part is really really expensive and time consuming for rescue organizations. You need a lot of man power and a lot of fuel, and the search can go on for days, and you may not even be sure that the person is in the area where you're looking.

If you can eliminate that part, all that's left is a direct flight to the location. It can be done quickly and relatively inexpensively, and is an easy win for both the rescue organization and the parent government (deaths and called-off rescue operations can be politically expensive).

Thank you. I thought it must be a lot more expensive. I just bought one (Resqlink 425, instead of the 400 your linked above)

Hey friend, your edit is extremely classy. I’ve had a wonderful conversation with you today and alupis today. Thanks for being so smart but also so kind.

Somehow I prefer this solution than ubiquitous drones with superior audiovisual capabilities everywhere and especially in the most remote regions of the planet.

> Somehow I prefer this solution than ubiquitous drones

"When all you have is a hammer..." My only question is where most of that $300 cost is coming from.

Me too, but I would think the price is due to the low batch size in manufacturing. If we want PLB to spread, we would need to integrate them in smartphones. The price of the hardware would probably drop dramatically.

This does not work well in practice, yet.

There is a lot of interest already in using both off-the-shelf and more purpose-built drone technologies in search and rescue. They currently have too many limitations: they cannot navigate complex tree canopies close enough to the ground to provide reliable visual contact with subjects; their flight time is so limited that deployment and management is a real pain for large search areas; and if they aren't fully automated then you get the same signal problems with your remote that we have with our much more powerful radios with the added benefit of extremely powerful repeaters scattered on nearby hills.

This isn't to say they can't be a resource in SAR. Alameda County brought out a brilliant array of UAV equipment after the Camp Fire and were able to survey large portions of the burned town of Paradise and then process the imagery down to almost 1 cm resolution in their IC trailer. It really was some next-gen stuff and they did it way faster than the ground pounders could survey the same area. Down in the southwest, in specific types of terrain, drones are being used to quickly survey some popular holes that hikers find their way into. And, a drone scouted an orchard and found a lost subject there about a year ago.

But you have to weigh those successes against the much larger number of cases where people with hundreds of hours of experience can still very nearly step on top of a nonresponsive subject without seeing them. Finding lost people is hard, and many of the failures to find lost people have more to do with the problems of getting bad information into IC, or searching the wrong area, or the subject being in an inaccessible area, or the lost person's remains getting quickly predated by local wildlife.

Thermal imaging likewise just does not work the way that people think it does. It doesn't work in cold environments like the Sierra in winter (western or eastern), because people are typically wearing insulated clothing and the entire area around them is a gigantic heat sink. It also doesn't work in very warm environments or in heavily vegetated environments or rocky environments with sunlight -- rocks absorb and re-radiate heat and so do plants.

I've had this conversation a few times with different technologists. What we need is a balloon that we can put up with a big ol' repeater on it. That would provide a lot more immediate benefit for search operations. But, it's not sexy, so nobody's as interested as they are in trying to fly quadcopters over impossible terrain 20 minutes at a time.

Thanks for the informative reply. Your point about "What we need is a balloon that we can put up with a big ol' repeater on it" is particularly brilliant and I hope the right people are reading.

Years ago, there was a kickstarter for a Rescue Me Balloon.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/651668573/rescue-me-bal...

I used to be an imagery analyst. You're spot on about infrared imaging. Normal dirt, rocks, and plants show more contrast than human vs environment. The only way to tell that the blur you're looking at is a person is if they start moving, and you recognize it's a human by the motion, not by the shape.

When I was an E-3, I had a three star general ask me if the image I was analyzing was a picture of a MiG-29 Fulcrum. I had to explain to him no, sir, it's a pickup truck. Probably a Hilux.

What about combining machine learning and thermal imaging? You would train the ML on the specific thermal characteristics of humans in different conditions. The ML may output a ton of false positives, but if there are a lot of eyes on the footage, and other sensors (LIDAR?) + normal image recognition are used, that might be worth it.

Another thing to consider is two-way audio search. The drone would make an extremely loud screech to announce its presence to the lost individual (paired with extremely bright light at night), then it listens for a human response. People can be trained to make a certain response that is easier to detect (loud continuous shout? Start and pause every 2 seconds? etc..). Of course, that should all be a backup to safety protocol and satellite communicators.

Lastly, I want to make the obvious point that a constellation of drones would do a better job than a single one. A swarm of drones can simultaneously cover the whole area where the lost individual might be. Combined with the above technology, that can be very powerful.

> Thermal imaging likewise just does not work the way that people think it does. It doesn't work in cold environments like the Sierra in winter (western or eastern), because people are typically wearing insulated clothing and the entire area around them is a gigantic heat sink. It also doesn't work in very warm environments or in heavily vegetated environments or rocky environments with sunlight -- rocks absorb and re-radiate heat and so do plants.

I wonder if there's a specific subset of this problem domain where thermal imaging could be very useful: detecting campfires at night.

I think this would address the limitations you mention, primarily due to the extreme temperature difference between the fire and surroundings. Since the night sky has a high absorptance to emittance ratio and thus acts as a thermal sink, the surrounding tree canopy would be cool and increase the contrast more.

Of course, fire would have a high contrast with its surroundings even in the visible light range, so perhaps I am overthinking this. One possible advantage of thermal imaging though would be if the convective heat transfer as the hot air moves up could act as a sort of long-range beacon? Possibly not because I know any particles in the air, or water vapor will reflect/obstruct thermal radiation over long distances and prevent it from being seen clearly.

Or... a dude in a helicopter with FLIR? Sometimes, low tech is best, honestly.

Of course they already have that. The problem isn't coverage usually, it's density of the terrain features and vegetation, and an unknown search radius in some cases.

That, and unprepared people with no way to signal a search vehicle if one comes near. That's a human problem though, not a tech problem.

Sure. It's the unknown search radius, availability of pilots, human factors, as well as the greater ability of a drone to self (or with human intervention) track in to greater resolution that makes me wonder if this is doable. Get the helicopter with a flir camera, but also send out 50 quadcopters or uavs as a force multiplier. If there is some sort of interesting infrared or acoustic signature at a site, just log it with GPS coordinates for human follow up.

> Get the helicopter with a flir camera, but also send out 50 quadcopters or uavs as a force multiplier.

You're going to have to contend with the disruption of 50 quadcopters barreling their way through natural wild habitat, foilage and more without disturbing all of the animals that live there. Or simply convince people that is a worth-while trade-off for saving unprepared skiiers that went off trail and down the wrong side of a mountain against all warnings...

That aside, I don't think there's much utility there. A large aerial drone like a Predator or something, ya that might be a big help (very long loiter times, powerful imaging equipment, etc). But you wouldn't need 50 of those, and the same difficulties will be present (body heat can only show on FLIR if it's not blocked by layers of foilage, etc). But... then you'll have to convince people it's not a "militarization" of rescue services!

I will push back on you a bit there. Most people can only cover a couple of dozen miles a day, depending on the person and the terrain. A lot of the time, they realize they are lost and will yell or try to make themselves found. Maybe a high foliage environment would be a better target for directional mics / acoustics.

I think the search and rescue efforts as they stand are pretty disruptive (helicopters, teams covering grids) so I don't think this is incrementally much worse.

The "unprepared skiiers" (or hikers, sailors) you mention are someone's child and often someone's parent. They are loved and mourned, and it's a bit easier to get lost than is generally appreciated.

A sea rescue is a different ball of wax than a forest rescue, and I was freely mixing both situations. In the sea setting, Plant Labs or a aerial drone like a predator (like commercializing existing military tech, eg, GPS) is more appropriate, perhaps.

The biggest obstacle here is staging these for use and being available in a timely manner, on the order of hours.

> Maybe a high foliage environment would be a better target for directional mics / acoustics.

I don't think this works as well as you might hope. When in dense foliage, it's difficult to hear sounds that are not that far away. It's a fantastic noise insulator. For this reason, survival classes usually teach signalling with reflective surfaces, like mirrors, watch faces, metal object/knives, etc. If you can sweep a helicopter with a reflection several times, they'll notice and rightfully think it's man-made. Plus, you can't hear someone screaming over a helicopter anyway.

> I think the search and rescue efforts as they stand are pretty disruptive (helicopters, teams covering grids) so I don't thin this is incrementally worse.

Certainly they are, but I do think drones close to the ground would be incredibly more disruptive, and potentially dangerous to curious wildlife.

> The "unprepared skiiers" you mention are someone's child (and often someone's parent).

You are not wrong. I think I was getting at, that most rescues are unglamorous, and usually caused by sheer stupidity of the people that were lost. Boats running out of fuel because they didn't prepare properly, or the skier example of ignoring all warnings, etc. It's not often that people were prepared, and the rock beneath their feet gave-way and now they're trapped.

Yes, we have to rescue stupid people too, but I think we should weigh the external costs to the environment when doing so. We wouldn't drain a lake to find a missing person. Maybe that's not a fair comparison? I don't know... but I do know people went outdoors to experience nature, so we shouldn't destroy it trying to save people either.

I guess, in short, you can make this scheme work, but I don't think it'll add tangible benefits to rescues, and it might actually be more effort to manage and operate, which could suck resources away from actual "boots on the ground/in the sky".

These are good points too. I like the idea of being able to deploy drones into areas where weather/conditions expose search and rescue teams to immense personal risks.

I know so little about boats or the ocean that I’m nowhere near qualified to even have an opinion. But I wonder about applications in mountain ranges where highly experienced climbers run into constantly shifting weather or unpredictable avalanche threats. At some point, search and rescue techs have to call off searches because the conditions that lead to the original disaster threaten to lead them into the very same kind of disaster.

Programmatically, that’s a very difficult problem and I can see many problems with solving it in any sort of efficient way. But armed with some education about good emergency beacons and ways to make your team visible to drone rescuers, I think there’s something there.

The crap part of search and rescue is that teams tend to go out to rescue anyone who needs it. There was an incident near Calgary several years ago when a man decided to go for a hike but didn’t have enough experience in the mountains to realize that getting down is significantly more difficult than climbing up. He didn’t survive that mistake and a SAR team found him without incident. But had weather conditions been any different, it’s sad to think that those skilled, loving people could have needed their own rescue while trying to find someone whose lack of experience lead to a personal disaster...

I agree with what you’re saying and I’ll add another point in your favour.

At points, SAR teams have to make really difficult choices. Consider rescue operations in mountain ranges. Search and rescue teams have to contend with the same kinds of conditions that often lead extremely experienced, skilled teams to disaster. Ground teams, for example, have to deal with avalanche risks. Air teams have to deal with constantly shifting weather patterns. There’s a point when they have to call off searches as it’s often not worth sacrificing their own lives to find people who went into ranges on their own volition, got lost, ran into bad weather or got diverted, stranded (or worse) due to avalanches.

A drone based rescue operation takes that extra risk of death away.

Programmatically though, that leads to all sorts of other problems. One sad fact of mountain ranges is that while most climbers practice excellent hygiene and etiquette, there are others who leave ropes, gear and debris behind.

But combined with education on good disaster beacons and ways to make your team highly visible to computers, I think you’re onto something.

This is an excellent idea and if I had solved the money problem, I’d take it and run. Alas, I haven’t so I hope someone else sees this idea and goes with it. It sounds like something that SAR communities would be interested in. Depending on how interested you are in a follow up, it might be worth putting this concept forward to groups like the Alpine Club of Canada or any of the communities where SAR technicians hang out.

Good idea friend and I like how you articulated it!! Good luck!!!

I don't think there is any such principle as "if rescuing the human might disturb some animals, just let him die."

Seriously. That’s a really extreme position to take. Saving a human’s life clearly and objectively outweighs temporarily disturbing wild animals with increased noise. Is this seriously even a debate?

Tough choices have to be made in Rescue teams all the time. Another comment pointed out above that SAR teams routinely abandon searches when it becomes too hazardous. Trading one or more human lives for another isn't worth it in many cases.

We do value human life more than animals. This is non-debatable for sure.

However, at some point the costs of pursuing a rescue might be outweighed by other factors - one of which might be destruction of wild habitat and/or animals.

Like mentioned, we could drain lakes to find lost boaters, but we don't. We could cut down forests to find lost hikers, but we don't. There is some line we won't cross - so we have to find it and debate that particular point if we want to introduce potentially disruptive technology into natural habitats.

As an aside - it pains me inside to hear stories like this[1]. A rescue (not the type we're discussing, but still applies), caused 100% by human negligence. The result? The gorilla was shot dead... for... being a gorilla. Was that fair or humane?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Harambe

I’ve got to compliment you. This is one of the better conversations that I’ve had online in a very long time. You’re a big part of why this has been so enjoyable. Thanks for the fun and for raising so many good points.

I was a lot more certain before I started reading you and now I’m not sure. Big respect and thanks again.

If you’re interested, here’s an absolute nightmare scenario that actually happened. People were completely unprepared for what they were walking into. It had every chance to end in tragedy, but somehow it worked out okay.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/missing-chil...

A spirited debate now and again is good for the brain. :)

It challenges your thoughts and positions, and makes you actually question and rationalize why you think the things you do.

On occasion, you realize you were wrong. On other occasions, it enables you to fully develop your thoughts and prepare to rationally support them.

Either way, it's healthy, and far preferred to being in an echo chamber hearing only your own thoughts.

Thanks for taking the time to participate.

I completely agree with you and I'm absolutely grateful for all the opportunity that people like you give me to escape my own echo chamber.

Hacker News has made me a better person, a better developer and given me the tools to become a better parent. I can't say that about any other community I've ever been a part of.

Thank you and everyone else for being part of my growth. I love you all unconditionally, but especially because you won't just blow smoke up my ass and let me think I'm smrt. I guess that's maybe not unconditional love, but that's the best phrase I can come up with to explain how I feel about all the wisdom and kindness that I get to experience here.

>but also send out 50 quadcopters or uavs as a force multiplier.

Random small aircraft with FLIR on a swivel mount that beams the results back to somewhere else for analysis would likely be more cost effective for equivalent coverage.

I agree with the use of smallish unmanned aerial units. I also agree with using them in significantly large numbers. But I'd like to see combination use.

Example:Unmanned plane delivers quadcopters to position and retrieves them later.

Protoss - "Carrier has arrived."

> Or... a dude in a helicopter with FLIR?

Just FYI, in California CHP provides this capability to many areas free of charge, if requested by the county in charge. And CHP's pilots are very, very good.

I'd like to see all phones and phone towers fitted with an emergency ping ability and an emergency ping protocol, since almost everyone carries a phone these days.

If you needed help, you'd enter a text describing your situation (a default text would be used if you could only click a "HELP!" button), put the phone in a special mode that would shut everything down to conserve battery power but would send out a stronger-than-usual radio "ping" every 60 seconds or so (depending on battery). To save energy, the ping would not include the text. The repeated pings would be optimized to just shout into the ether, to get attention from the greatest distance possible.

Any receiver would recognize that it was an emergency ping and could respond with a protocol response ping that requested more info. The response would be sent at a predefined time delay and frequency that would be determined by the outgoing request ping that had been received so the phone would only have to listen to one frequency and for a brief time to save battery. The phone could rotate its outgoing pings to different frequencies but would always know when and at what frequency to listen for a response based on the outgoing ping it sent.

When it got a response from a tower, and only at that point, the phone would expend extra energy to transmit its location, the text, battery status, etc.

Based on various factors, the tower would schedule future transmissions and automate most of the data exchange to conserve the phone's power, would notify responders, and would tell the phone to notify its owner that help was being sent.

You could then put this emergency ping protocol into search and rescue aircraft and drones with mesh network abilities.

Cellular coverage is amazing and always improving but the exact areas that are problematic/have gaps are more likely to be search and rescue locations. Further, people don't always stay put after a device runs out of power, and it can't be assumed everyone is carrying a device on a cellular network (particularly children).

I've heard of ski resorts using stringray-like devices to locate avalanche victims.

Well, there are just personal locator beacons which you can rent and tell rescue personnel exactly where you are if you need a rescue.

Satellite phones with this capability are remarkably cheap for anyone who’s undertaking activities that might call for this.

Contracts typically have a call centre able to dispatch relevant local authorities wherever you are.

What if you lose them or they fail to work?

Then you’re in the same place as if you didn’t have one and you’re hopefully not making yourself utterly dependent on them.

Then it’s not really the same thing as the GP’s comment was taking about: A service that looks for you and SOS signals which can be constructed at the distress site without depending on any equipment you had before you were stranded.

Carry a backup?

Then you've wasted $250, which at that point is presumably the least of your problems.

They're not even expensive to buy. I picked one up for a few hundred dollars for hiking. I believe it's good for 10 years, until the battery needs replacing.

I don't even do particularly intense hikes, usually not even overnight, but I read a few stories and realised how easy it is to end up in a situation where you need one. You just have to slip over and land badly, that's all it takes.

Or maybe it won't be me, but someone else on the trail who needs help.

The history of humans, traveling totally unprepared into harsh environmental conditions, thinking they'll just "Rambo" their way through, is stunning.

The "Into the Wild" bus comes to mind[1]. So many people died every year, attempting to forge rivers unprepared, and brave the harsh Alaskan elements, that they had to remove this bus! It wasn't enough that people died every year, and that most of them had practically zero harsh environment experience...

Nature will kill you every chance it gets. Be prepared, or don't go.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53106441

We choose to go to the moon!

I'd argue they were abundantly prepared for going to the harsh moon environment.

yeah I've got one too (for kayaking in the ocean and hiking/overlanding), the peace of mind that they offer is worth the cost alone.

I like to go places with no cell signal, and when you're hours from the nearest paved road, it's nice to know that you can get airlifted out if you get bitten by a snake, etc.

A few hundred dollars seems fastastically expensive to me. What is possibly inside it that justifies that price?

It’s a satellite commS device. You also need a service for it to be useful.

I do find it somewhat amusing to read a comment that a device that locates me anywhere on the planet and can communicate that information via satellite costs a few hundred dollars! to be vaguely amusing.

There are really two different options here. Some devices, variously called EPIRBs, PLBs, and ELTs depending on the exact device and application, report to a system called COSPAS-SARSAT which is a free service operated by an international collaboration. You do not need to pay any service fee for these, although you are required to register them with a local authority (the Coast Guard in the US) so that they have contact info for you.

These devices tend to be expensive because most of them are manufactured to either FAA or Coast Guard standards that are pretty strict and require things like a multi-year permanent battery, water intrusion and impact tests, etc.

On the other hand you can get a couple of different consumer-pointing satellite communicators that rely on commercial networks, mostly GlobalStar. Spot X and Garmin InReach are the two big ones. Both are cheaper up front but require a monthly service plan. They do tend to have fancy features that PLBs can't offer like two-way text messaging, but they're not generally built to any particular standard for durability, so you wouldn't want to use them, say, at sea or in an airplane.

The COSPAS-SARSAT system also generally has better coverage than GlobalStar but there are tradeoffs, esp. depending on the different capability levels.

The thought that they're pricey seems like a reasonable thing when you compare e.g. a $400 EPIRB to the $200 Spot X, but the EPIRB is tested to work in water whereas the Spot X has janky firmware that doesn't always work great anywhere (I love mine but... it has rough edges).

> ...mostly GlobalStar. Spot X and Garmin InReach are the two big ones

These are different though. SPOT works on globalstar which has gaps in coverage, particularly large parts of the Pacific. A coverage map is here: https://www.findmespot.com/en-us/products-services/coverage-...

The inReach works on iridum and claims 100% world-wide coverage.

Personally I carry an EPIRB for the boat, a PLB on the lifejacket and an inReach for texting. Cheap insurance.

A simple “expensive compared to what” seems in order. I agree it’s expensive, just not particularly so in USA or other high-income countries, which is a good point to make. However, in low-income countries where satellite communications are prohibitively expensive, even if you can alert emergency services, they may be unavailable or unreachable or outside the rapid response area you need emergency services in.

Basically, if you can afford it, it works. If you can’t afford it, satellite comms might not have saved you anyway, even if you had it.

You absolutely do not need service to use a PLB. You pay $300 once and fill out a (free) form online with your extended/emergency contact info.

A satellite text messenger like SPOT is not a PLB.

A few hundred dollars to be able to get help in a potentially life threatening situation sounds fantastically cheap to me. That's the difference between cost plus pricing versus value pricing.

Unless you have some idea how often they are used successfully, you have no whether you're getting a good value.

They need to be engineered to last for a long time between maintenance, be able to withstand the elements (saltwater, sunlight), and it's critical that the unit functions when you need it. The units are built very tough - mine is waterproof and also floats. The unit has test functions for the GPS and radio, and it has to work for 30+ hours continuously after it's been activated.

These things are also regulated by the government and need to meet certain standards.

Seriously, what the fuck is up with this attitude?

People will spend thousands of dollars on ultralight gear, and then balk at $300 for a magic button that summons a helicopter when you have a broken leg.

It's literally the cheapest life insurance you will ever be able to buy.

You should try making that argument quantitative.

It's a safety device; it must work reliably in adverse conditions, which is a requirement no consumer device, including €5000 TV sets, can meet. Also I believe in case of failure it would expose the manufacturer to some nasty lawsuits, hence the cost which very likely is equally spread on research, top notch build, quality control and insurance.

Why must it? Why not have they work only with 80% reliability if it could lower the price and put it in the hands of way more people?

Because if it had 80% reliability it wouldn't be a safety device at all. Think of cars, would you buy at a very discounted price a car whose brakes would fail 2 times out of 10? Different contexts, I know, but when safety is a must price doesn't matter much.

When I think of cars and safety, I think of Takata airbags.

I encourage you to be more quantitative. We trade money for safety constantly. Every time you drive your car to work you do so, and likewise every time you buy a small car.

As of a decade ago, incorrect airbag deployment killed one person for ever 7 lives it saved. Nonetheless, they were mandated by law for many classes of cars, and were purchased voluntarily for others. And this was the right decision. They could have spent thousands of dollars per unit to get the mistake rate even lower, but that wouldn't have been worth the money.

I tend to push back against the “OMG how can you be out of contact with people?” take. That said, these days I’d find it hard to justify not carrying a satellite device (especially if I were solo) in something approaching deep wilderness.

This is the right answer. A Garmin InReach or similar device with two-way messaging capabilities should be regarded as standard equipment now for anyone going into backcountry or remote areas.

The two-way messaging allows local rescue teams to assess your condition, confirm your location, and deploy the appropriate resources more quickly.

Yep. I planned to hike the Appalachian Trail this year (canceled due to covid), and the Garmin InReach was universally recommended equipment.

Though, keep in mind that the satellite messenger's battery is going to run lower much faster if you use it much (and paying at least a $12/mo subscription for it on top of the purchase price, you'll probably be pretty tempted to use it), while a PLB never runs down from use because you only ever use it in a definite emergency.

> prone to anxiety, a diminutive 66-year-old woman with a poor sense of direction, hiking the Appalachian Trail by herself, who wandered into terrain so wild, it is used for military training.

Not to be insulting but I feel like the issue could have been solved 10 steps before the need to involve swarms of drones. If people want to go in remote areas they should carry ways to be located, there are no reasons not to carry one. It's the kind of thing that would make sense if money didn't exist, like having a police officer in front of every single house in the country to prevent burglaries.

If you were lost at sea / in the wilderness, would you trust your safety and eventual return to a machine learning model picking up your body heat? I know I'd want actual people in the aircraft.

You can do both. Predator/Reaper/Global Hawks [1] [2] working alongside human aircraft, deployed from land or aircraft carrier. If you don't trust the ML, have humans in the Vegas desert watching the feed. I imagine military sensor platforms are very good for identification of humans.

> Five Reapers can provide 36 hours of combined surveillance coverage in Afghanistan with individual sorties lasting up to 16 hours; a further five vehicles increases this to 72 hours

For reference Afghanistan is roughly 251k square miles in size. Ten Reapers to cover 251k square miles for 72 hours at a time. Caveat, I have not done the math what the O&M costs are per hour for such a drone fleet.

Alternatively (or in concert?), Planet Labs supports 50cm resolution, and you can buy their imagery with a credit card. They are imaging almost the entire Earth daily (although they might exclude oceans? I imagine for the right price, they'll retask or capture a grid on demand). [3] [4] It's not heat sensing, but there might be signal to be found.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-9_Reaper

[2] https://www.pacaf.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/220396...

[3] https://www.planet.com/why-planet/

[4] https://www.planet.com/pulse/more-spectral-bands-50cm-global...

The sky is cloudy a lot of the time which limits the effectiveness of satellite imagery.

I have been involved in lower grade search efforts. This is not either/or, this is supplemental. If you've never been in a scenario, particular with children, time is of the essence particular with temperature or terrain hazards. Time is the enemy, and the goal of this would be reduce time to cover a search area. If you find it interesting, https://www.outsideonline.com/2059616/how-backcountry-search... is a good read.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com