Revector has launched the Revector Detector Drone (RDD) – an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a mobile phone base station attached that can fly over hard-to-reach areas in the aftermath of natural disasters or accidents and locate survivors through their mobile phones. The technology delivers a new level of flexibility and functionality to search and rescue teams.
RDD mimics a base station so mobile phones of victims connect to it, helping search and rescue teams quickly and effectively identify the location of injured or lost people (who have their phones with them) and send rescuers to support them.
The drones can be as light as five kilograms, yet still monitor an area of 10 kilometres for up to 90 minutes and accurately identify a person (and their phone) that is lost or injured to within a 20-metre area.
The technology can be deployed by mountain rescue teams, police forces and even the military to support finding and rescuing people more quickly by identifying their exact location in advance of sending a rescue team.
Andy Gent, CEO of Revector, comments:
“Search and Rescue teams rely on quickly locating where critically injured people are to ensure fast and safe recovery. Not knowing where a victim is means rescue teams risk not only slowing a recovery operation but also possibly risking more lives in extreme environments.
RDD enables rescue teams to know exactly where injured people are on a mountain, in a forest or even in the aftermath of an earthquake as long as someone has an active mobile phone.”
Nearly everyone has a cellular phone and being able to turn this into a rescue beacon that can be tracked by search and rescue could mean the difference between life or death. The system is user intuitive and provides accurate and fast location capabilities whilst minimising crew involvement and workload.
Gent believes that RDD can help mountain rescue teams, the RNLI and the police to quickly find a person lost in extreme circumstances.
“In 2020 Mountain Rescue alone was called on in England and Wales more than 3000 times. RDD can help ensure that not only injured people have a better chance of early rescue, but also help brave Mountain Rescue teams to remain safe in extreme and challenging environments.”
