FINDER, space technology that helped find four … – Observer

A technology developed by NASA helped rescue teams in Nepal to find four people buried under the rubble caused by the earthquake of April 25, which killed more than seven thousand people. It was the first time the FINDER, as the system is called, was used in a real situation

The FINDER -. That in addition to meaning “Pathfinder” in English, is the official name Finding Individuals for Disaster and Emergency Response – is a system that works by sending microwaves through the wreckage and that can detect the heartbeat of victims. Composed of a radar size of a small suitcase and a little larger device than a tablet , the FINDER is designed to help emergency teams to find victims in the first few moments after the crisis and is scheduled to distinguish cardiac movements of humans and animals.

In Nepal, the four men who FINDER helped remove from under the rubble were buried four days. Two system prototypes arrived in the country on 29 April and began to be used by an emergency team with Chinese elements, Dutch, Belgian and Nepalese, who managed to capture two heartbeats underneath two buildings and thus open the way to the rescue of four victims.

The original FINDER project is the United States Department of Homeland Security, which turned to NASA because the agency had already developed a similar technology to discover life on other planets. It is thus the result of a special combination. “The FINDER is an example of how technology designed for space exploration has profound impacts on life on Earth,” said David Miller, coordinator of a team of NASA technology.

The FINDER is far from the first Space technology to be used on Earth: a number of medical devices (thermometers, pacemakers , prostheses), safety devices (fire suits) and others (such as water purification systems and portable vacuum cleaners) were developed based on research done by NASA for exploration of the universe.

For now, the FINDER is just a prototype that was first successfully tested in a real scenario. NASA is now trying to market it to the worldwide emergency services.