 Poster: A snowHead
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 European nations finally agreed to build the €3.4bn ($5bn, £2.4bn) Galileo satellite navigation system, which officials claim will give the EU "strategic independence" from the US, last week. It could also be good news for skiers and snowboarders too. A novel positioning system, ‘Galileo SAR Lawine’, which will use the signals of the future satellite system, will help improve the search for victims buried by an avalanche....A skilled team of mountain and air rescue workers and police can usually locate avalanche victims to within about 20m while preparing to land. But narrowing a victim’s position to the last 1-2m is difficult and takes valuable time. It is hoped that Europe’s future satellite navigation system, Galileo, will help with this fine positioning.
The project will be implemented by a consortium of regional companies, institutes and universities, and will be sponsored by the German Aerospace Center DLR with funds from the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology BMWi.
Signals from the satellite system will be combined with other systems such as America’s GPS, and will also be offset against error estimation and correction signals. By pooling these information sources, it should be possible to locate avalanche casualties with an accuracy of less than 1m, even in steep terrain. A light, easy-to-use hand set will show search parties the located position and lead them to it.
In order to ensure that the system meets the requirements of its future users, the rescue workers of the Berchtesgaden mountain rescue service, the German federal police and the Bavarian police are being involved in all the important development phases of the project.
Galileo will be Europe’s own global navigation satellite system, providing a highly accurate, guaranteed global positioning service under civilian control. It will be inter-operable with GPS and GLONASS, the two other global satellite navigation systems.
For more info: http://www.innovations-report.de/html/berichte/informationstechnologie/bericht-99533.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f8cf33f0-9fb3-11dc-8031-0000779fd2ac.html
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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How often are avalanche victims rescued by people from outside their ski group, not often. So for a system like this to be of much use the victim will need a GPS receiver unit and a means to transmit their buried location to their skiing buddies / rescuers. They will need a means to receive this message containing the GPS co-ords. This could be done now with current GPS and a suitable device to receive the transmission from the victim’s device. Galileo will offer better accuracy and will probably work better under snow.
How at present do you locate a buried avalanche victim from a helicopter to within 20 meters? Is this a reference to the Recco system - which has a near zero success rate for finding avalanche victims alive. Besides by the time this system goes live there’ll be no snow left.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| waynos wrote: |
How often are avalanche victims rescued by people from outside their ski group, not often. So for a system like this to be of much use the victim will need a GPS receiver unit and a means to transmit their buried location to their skiing buddies / rescuers. They will need a means to receive this message containing the GPS co-ords. This could be done now with current GPS and a suitable device to receive the transmission from the victim’s device. Galileo will offer better accuracy and will probably work better under snow.
How at present do you locate a buried avalanche victim from a helicopter to within 20 meters? Is this a reference to the Recco system - which has a near zero success rate for finding avalanche victims alive. Besides by the time this system goes live there’ll be no snow left. |
Galileo won't work under snow, neither do Glonass or GPS. At present avalanche victims wearing a beacon are located with an avalanche beacon mounted in the helicopter (assuming we have a helicopter on hand and it is correctly equipped). They also have Recco on board, which can detect things like mobile phones, iPods etc. If you look at rescue helicopters you can see the antenna mounted on the front. They have better range than hand held units. The helicopter can fly low over the slide and give a location this way.
I guess what they are saying is (the linked articles give no clue of what they are talking about) that they will be able to transmit more accurate GPS coordinates to ground searchers of where they believe the victim is, assuming they get a signal. There is obviously room for a helicopter mounted system to do far more signal analysis than is capable with a handheld unit (due to size and power requirements) although I understand that at present helicopter units don't do this. As you correctly say, this won't do a great deal as they are almost certainly already dead by the time a helicopter arrives but I guess it makes body recovery quicker.
This is assuming Galileo ever gets launched. Seems like an expensive duplication of effort.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
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davidof, I did find some research on current GPS units working under snow, have a google, and that suggested that some receiver can work buried in up to a meter of snow. I know GPS is not spec-ed to work under snow but apparently can. My understanding of Galileo was that it's being desgined to work within buildings, so from that in I guess (no expert of radio signals etc) Galileo could work better under snow than current GPS.
A system that continuoulsy transmits each skiers current GPS co-ords to each other could help. If one or more of the group are taken in an avalanche then the others members would have the last received co-ords available. Would require some kind of mobile peer-to-peer wifi comms like system or maybe use mobile phone data network (GPRS, 3G) if available
buried GPS (not exactly extensive research)
http://ndrd.gsfc.nasa.gov/ndrdres/new/1096.html
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| waynos wrote: |
davidof, I did find some research on current GPS units working under snow, have a google, and that suggested that some receiver can work buried in up to a meter of snow. I know GPS is not spec-ed to work under snow but apparently can. My understanding of Galileo was that it's being desgined to work within buildings, so from that in I guess (no expert of radio signals etc) Galileo could work better under snow than current GPS.
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that's interesting, although I see they seem to be using some pretty exotic receivers. Most GPS have troube with tree canopy and remember that an avalanche would occur on a slope so the view of the sky could be quite limited.
Given that GPS units only cost a few euros now it could be possible to integrate the two but I doubt we will have the power to run them.
It all sounds like stuff to justify spending bizzillions of pounds on Galileo, a pork barrel for European firms, but I doubt it really can do the fandango!
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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davidof, I did considered developing a prototype system using a couple of GPS enabled smartphones with Wifi a couple of years ago. Using such off the shelf technology probably would not meet the safety , performance, usability, availability , rug-ability, etc requirements for a certified safety device, but at least gives an idea of possible applications of technology
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Galileo will have a number of advantages over Navstar GPS, and waynos seems to have covered most of them which will be of any interest to a 'normal' person. It is, according to plan, going to be more accurate, but a couple of meteres horizontally compared to 10 metres is not a huge difference (depending upon what you're using it for of course); and the US DoD still retain the right to turn selective availability back on (reducing accuracy/precision considerably). GPS is also based around WGS84 (best fit model of the world) which is most accurate around the Americas, whilst Galileo will be based on a model more akin to OSGB36 (UK/Europe), which will mean higher accuracy when using maps/charts based on the European system (using a map fitted to the wrong model for the system used can result in errors of 100m+).
I'll stop now, before I get too boring. 
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It's two fold. One being the satellite that would help boost the accuracy of all GPS navigation system in general. The other being a "smart beacon" that will transmitt (and receive) the GPS coordinate of the victim.
I think the satellite is not primarily for the skiers. It's for car drivers mostly. But the technology exist to take advantage of the satellite and make avi beacon smarter and better.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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The exact technology may not be clear yet but presumably, sooner or more probably later, you'll get a device with your lift pass or you register your mobile phone/swatch watch etc. and that becomes your safety net. Not only is it useful in the event of an avalanche but also tracking your day's activities, just like a GPS really. It's just a matter of commercial viability (and if there's any snow left by then).
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| davidof wrote: |
| At present avalanche victims wearing a beacon are located with an avalanche beacon mounted in the helicopter (...). |
Can you explain some more about this system please? I knew about Recco detectors being carried in helicopters, but what other technology is now being used?
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FAQ
