CLOSE-SEARCH

The context of CLOSE-SEARCH is that of Search-And-Rescue in a number of critical circumstances ranging from “outdoor sports” to natural or man-made disasters. This context covers a broad range –if not all– situations: from position-tagged (this is, georeferenced) distress calls, to loosely georeferenced (approximate information on where the person might be) and non-georeferenced ones (the person left home, couple of hours ago...). The proposed search system aims at being operated day and night in rather inaccessible areas. By systematically flying over a region and through the detection of the body heat, CLOSE-SEARCH is intended to identify disaster survivors or lost people. In other words, CLOSE-SEACRH would be a low-cost and robust system to support the SAR search component in situations with just approximate knowledge of the search geographic area and at any time of the day.

Arisen from the previous statements, it is clear that CLOSE-SEARCH is not just a technical challenge in the fields of navigation, communication and remote sensing, but real-life emergency situations have to be properly understood, faced and solved. Then, besides the project plan to achieve the technical objectives, the project is constantly monitored on its developments and achievements, and advised consequently towards a real user-oriented approach.

Aiming at this, the project incorporates a partner specially related with the SAR world: the Direcció General de Protecció Civil (DGPC). This organization brings the SAR expertise, as it deals in a daily basis with damages caused for whatever reason to people, goods, public property or the environment, among others. This indeed includes situations like those previously described.

Now, CLOSE-SEARCH aims at establishing a firm bridge between the technical development of the system and the real user needs. For this purpose, the idea is to bring together a group of teams related to SAR operations that could assess the development of the project and provide their opinion and advise in order to improve the system and/or redirect the objective targeting. The implementation of this idea results in the creation of the User Advisory Board (UAB).

At this stage of the project, this is the UAB composition, coordinated by the Direcció General de Protecció Civil:

If you are a SAR team or coordinator, and you want to participate in CLOSE-SEARCH and/or other related iniciatives, write us!