Prototpe Airborne Search and Rescue System

摘要

Aircaft sometime crash in forested areas without leaving an easily detectable entry point or other indication that a cradh has occurred. The wreckage c an be completely obscured by overthead vegetation, which makes locating efforts, by air and ground search teams nearly impossible. In additioin, there are many times, for many reeasons, that emergency beacons fail to operate after a crash has occurred. For these cases, NASA has been exprimenting with airborne synthetic aperture radar to provide a search tool to help focus the visual searches that are initiated after an aircraft is reported missing. The paper reviews a proposed operational scenario and the elements of a prototpye airborne system that could be brought into sue for finding crashed aircraft obscured from view.