Search and Rescue: New Directions.

After the heartbreaking results of GeoCam and Hyper-GeoCam during HASP 2007, we are going to investigate the same type of technique from less unusual ways of putting things in the air. Some of our initial findings can be seen here. We cannot afford to wait for a year to have results like these (small planes,...). In particular, the inability to get systems in a working shape and actually taking data in a rapid turn around is just a big invitation to Murphy's law.
I have already tried to gather similar data from commercial airliners but with a 3X optical zoom point and shoot cameras. I am going to improve that. Since we are talking about an altitude of 10,000 feet and a speed of about 700 km/h, the parameter for map/panorama making are different. The image in this entry was taken over Canada and assembled about 10 photos. In this example there was no attention given to the detail of the scene.

It looks there is some interest from other people in this area (I had no idea), I am going to investigate that as well as with some of the contact I had during the search for the Tenacious. I'll report on this later. One of the most surprising findings of the current search for Steve Fossett is the finding of the location of at least six other crashes. I had known that crashes occured and went missing after a year but I personally had no idea of the the large amount of missing planes:

The search has spread across an area of 17,000 square miles, twice the size of New Jersey. Crews will continue combing sections of that vast landscape, but on Sunday they began focusing on the territory within 50 miles of the ranch. Most crashes occur within that radius during takeoffs or landings, Nevada Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said.

``We've got close to 100 percent covered, at least in some cursory fashion,'' Ryan told reporters Sunday. ``We have to eliminate a lot of territory.''

The discovery of at least six previously unknown wrecks in such a short time has been a stark demonstration of the odds against finding Fossett's single-engine Bellanca Citabria Super Decathlon.

The Florida-based Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, which is helping coordinate the search, maintains a registry of known plane wreck sites.

The registry has 129 entries for Nevada. But over the last 50 years, aviation officials estimate, more than 150 small planes have disappeared in Nevada, a state with more than 300 mountain ranges carved with steep ravines, covered with sagebrush and pinon pine trees and with peaks rising to 11,000 feet.

What is currently also very clear in my mind is that the turn-around between instrument data gathering and analysis is taking too long. The Mechanical turk initiative is a noteworthy one, however, it does not address our current inability to process intelligently the wall of data coming from these hyperspectral imagers (which seem to largely never recover any useful data for the searches). I am thinking of probably using some of the compressed techniques to be able to do that on-board the planes. Having to these data used to be difficult, it looks like the European Space Agency understands that more people need to have access to them to find interesting things in niche markets. They make their data available here.

Since the number of posts on the subject has risen over the course of this year, I am summarizing all these entries in a more coherent way here. You can also reach that link by clicking on the right side bar. In that link, there are several subjects that do not have an entry but eventually I want to address them and the necessary improvements needed for the technology to be optimal in terms of operations.