If you Have you ever been in a situation when you are in a remote place and you’re injured? You can’t move properly and there is no cellular reception, so you can’t even call for help? What can we do in situations like those besides sit there and wait to be found by a rescue team? Now, there is something you can do. There is a new app designed at Spain’s Universidad de Alicante that sends out a distress signal should the need arise.
When the distress signal app is activated by the user, it periodically emits a Wi-Fi signal that acts as a distress beacon which can be detected over a distance of several kilometers. This beacon has the necessary information including the user’s GPS coordinates along with a text message saying “I am injured” or “I am disoriented”.
A small antenna-equipped receptor device is required to pick up the signal and it connects to the smartphone of the person receiving the signal.
“There is no system in the world that uses Wi-Fi signals to geo-locate a smartphone,” says project leader Prof. José Ángel Berná. “There are devices that allow you to detect mobile phone signals from a smartphone and pinpoint its location through triangulation, but it costs around €80,000 [about US$95,629] and requires the use of a helicopter.”
To compare the cost to that expensive method, if enough crews buy and use the receptor device, the cost could be as low as €600 ($717). This technology has already been tested by both the Special Mountain Intervention Rescue Groups of the Guardia Civil, and the Maritime Service of the Armed Forces and Maritime Rescue and works as described.
This will definitely work towards saving lives and the people lost will have a ray of hope to look forward to rather than giving into the fear of impending doom.