A first-of-its-kind portable radar device to detect the heartbeats and breathing patterns of victims trapped in large piles of rubble resulting from a disaster has been developed by NASA.
The prototype technology, called Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response (FINDER) can locate individuals buried as deep as about 9 meters in crushed materials, hidden behind about 6 meters of solid concrete, and from a distance of about 30 meters in open spaces.
Developed in conjunction with Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, FINDER is based on remote-sensing radar technology developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to monitor the location of a spacecraft.
"FINDER is bringing NASA technology that explores other planets to the effort to save lives on ours," said Mason Peck, chief technologist for NASA.
The technology was demonstrated at the DHS's Virginia Task Force 1 Training Facility in Lorton, Viginia.
"The ultimate goal of FINDER is to help emergency responders efficiently rescue victims of disasters," said John Price, programme manager for the First Responders Group in Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate in Washington.
"The technology has the potential to quickly identify the presence of living victims, allowing rescue workers to more precisely deploy their limited resources," said Price.
The technology works by beaming microwave radar signals into the piles of debris and analysing the patterns of signals that bounce back.
NASA's Deep Space Network regularly uses similar radar technology to locate spacecraft. A light wave is sent to a spacecraft, and the time it takes for the signal to get back reveals how far away the spacecraft is.
"Detecting small motions from the victim's heartbeat and breathing from a distance uses the same kind of signal processing as detecting the small changes in motion of spacecraft like Cassini as it orbits Saturn," said James Lux, task manager for FINDER at JPL.
In disaster scenarios, the use of radar signals can be particularly complex. Earthquakes and tornadoes produce twisted and shattered wreckage, such that any radar signals bouncing back from these piles are tangled and hard to decipher.
Advanced algorithms isolate the tiny signals from a person's moving chest by filtering out other signals, such as those from moving trees and animals.
