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158 points nizarmah | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.301s | source

A couple of months ago, I built this app to help identify people stuck under rubble.

First responders have awesome tools. But in tough situations, even common folks need to help.

After what happened in Myanmar, we need something like this that works properly.

It has only been tested in controlled environments. It can also be improved; I know BLE is not _that_ effective under rubble.

If you have any feedback or can contribute, don't hold back.

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eddythompson80 ◴[] No.43553008[source]
> It can also be improved; I know BLE is not _that_ effective under rubble.

It's a tough problem to solve because you're up against the laws of physics and the very boring (and often counterintuitive) "Antenna Theory". Bluetooth is in the UHF band, and UHF isn't good for penetrating anything let a lone concrete rubble.

To penetrate rubble effectively you really want to be in the ELF-VLF bands, (That's what submarines/mining bots/underground seismic sensors use to get signals out).

Obviously that's ridiculous. Everything from ELF to even HF is impossible to use in a "under the rubble" situation because of physics[1]. Bluetooth (UHF) might be "better than nothing" but you're losing at least 25-30 dBs (which is like 99.99% signal) in 12 inches of concrete rubble. VHF (like a handheld radio) can buy you another 5 inches.

Honestly I think sound waves travel further in such medium than RF waves.

[1]: Your "standard reference dipole" antenna needs to be 1/2 or 1/4 your wave length to resonate. At ELF-VLF range you need an antenna that's 10k-1k feet long. You can play with inductors and loops to electrically lengthen your antenna without physically lengthening it, but you're not gonna get that below 500-200 feet. The length of a submarine is an important design consideration when deciding on what type of radio signal it needs to be able to receive/transmit vs how deep it needs to be for stealth.

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1. EdwardDiego ◴[] No.43553736[source]
Using an AirTag on my dog's collar and WifiMan on my phone to track BLE signals, I could pick it up (just... not enough to interact with it, but enough to detect it above -100dbM) about 8 - 10m with a clear line of sight, and about 2m when she was in dense scrub.

So yeah, I imagine concrete is going to be even worse than a shrubbery, that said, might get some interesting propagation paths if there's metal surfaces in the rubble to reflect waves.