'Flying cell tower' to aid search and rescue operations

[thewayne]

A new piece of tech from a company in Spain is proving very effective for people involved in search and rescue. It's effectively a portable cell 'tower' that can be mounted on a helicopter in very little time, claimed three minutes. The concept is to get the lost people's phones to connect to the tower - which the device can detect from twenty miles away(!), then by circling the area the device detects, they can quickly zero in on where the people are.

How quickly?

During a test mission, they found their 'lost people' in two minutes and 14 seconds!

The portable phone tower also allows text-based broadcasts from the helicopter, allowing the rescuers to instruct the lost people to move to a clearing for the helicopter to land, or stay in place if there are injured people, etc.

This is a very cool tool, and I expect will be helpful in saving lives. It can also be used to fly over areas and broadcast messages about impending flash floods or fires, etc.

Privacy implications. Pretty minimal, as far as the article reveals. This is not a Stingray device, it doesn't capture, intercept and record all cell traffic in an area. It looks for a phone's beacon, detects it, and uses directional antennas/analysis localizes it and can send text messages - much lower power requirement and longer range than voice comms so the lost people's battery will last longer. I don't think this will have any application in law enforcement or surveillance. But I could be wrong.

https://coloradosun.com/2024/05/28/new-technology-search-rescue-helicopters/

https://mobile.slashdot.org/story/24/05/29/0543211/new-tech-may-help-find-missing-people-in-the-backcountry-within-minutes

The Colorado Sun article has a very good description of the broad usage of the device, the Slashdot story has some good technical description of how such a device could work and why it would take a long time to bring such a thing to market.

Comments

[warriorsavant]

Very cool. No doubt someone will figure a way to use it for LE or espionage, but that's almost irrelevant.

[thewayne]

Some LE and definitely espionage already have Stingrays, which are much more capable, so I don't see the point.  Most anything can be coopted, but this one seems to be quite efficient for what it does with respect to privacy, and since it's engineered and built in Spain, I would expect that they would still have to respect EU privacy laws even if the device is exported to the USA.

[disneydream06]

WOWZA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That is great news. :)
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

I think it's pretty darn cool.

[silveradept]

Pretty cool idea. Of course, only works if someone is broadcasting and trying to find a signal that the tool can lock on to. Depending on where someone goes, that may be something they're not doing, because they know there's nothing around for them.

[thewayne]

As the article says, most hikers are smart enough so that when they realize they're in trouble, they'll turn their phone off, then turn it on occasionally to check for signal.  If they do that and a helicopter with the device is in the area, then it should catch the beacon and lock on.