NASA's Radar Found 4 Men Trapped in Rubble in Nepal By Their Heartbeats
A couple years ago, NASA and DHS unveiled a portable radar unit based on technology used to detect alien life on distant exoplanets. This radar unit, though, would be used closer to home—to find people burried under rubble. In the first real-world demonstration of its use, the device helped save 4 men trapped under earthquake rubble in Nepal.
After the earthquake hit, rescuers in the village of Chautara got two prototype units of the device called FINDER, or Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response. The core of the device is a system that bounces microwaves around to “see.” Crucially, it can discern faint heartbeats and breaths in people buried under several feet of rubble.
In this case, FINDER was apparently able to detect the heartbeats of two men each in two different collapsed buildings. The men had been trapped for days, under as much as 10 feet of rubble.
The details of the rescues are otherwise scant, so it’s hard to say exactly what would have happened without FINDER. Still, it shows the FINDER works out in the field and not just in controlled test situations. We hear about the potential in new technologies all the time—with FINDER, some of that potential just became reality.
http://gizmodo.com/nasas-radar-found-4-men-trapped-in-rubble-in-nepal-by-t-1702553957
NASA’s New Heartbeat Sensor Could Save Lives
The portable device uses radar technology to find people trapped beneath rubble
By Courtney Subramanian @cmsubSept. 26, 2013
A new tool from NASA and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could help emergency responders locate victims following major disasters.
The portable device, Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER), tracks the heartbeat and breathing of people trapped in up to 30 feet of rubble and debris or up to 20 feet of solid concrete. The device was demonstrated for the first time to members of the media on Wednesday at a Homeland Security training facility in Virginia. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) will begin testing it next year.
FINDER uses remote-sensing radar technology developed by NASA’s California-based Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to monitor spacecraft locations for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. FINDER beams microwave radar signals into areas of disaster and debris to analyze patterns of breathing and heartbeat signals that bounce back.
Though the prototype is still being tested, the underlying radar technology is not new. NASA’s Deep Space Network — as well as scientific researchers — frequently uses similar technology to measure the distance of spacecraft, but JPL’s latest development uses advanced algorithms to distinguish tiny signals from a person’s moving chest from other signals such as trees or animals.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/09/26/nasas-new-heartbeat-sensor-could-save-lives/
= new reply since forum marked as read
If there's any followup with more details, be sure and post it, please!
FINDER has amazing possibilities!
Thanks for posting, jakeXT!
What do we need this stuff for anyway? No reason at all. I've never been trapped under rubble...
And for the sarcastically challenged...
