Safe Recreation

Serious risks

Nearly every week, people are injured in the remote Canadian backcountry.

Some are in situations of critically low phone battery or otherwise lack connectivity.

At this time, even small amounts of information can be useful, and of life-critical importance.

Novel Technologies

The radio networking technology named LoRaWAN has shown considerable potential in a search-and-rescue scenario. With coverage distances around five times greater than "golden standard" technologies such as ARVA, the system is being evaluated for various contexts including person tracking and disaster monitoring (Bianco et al., 2020; Bianco & Marrocco 2022).

Provided the basic infrastructure is well-deployed and -maintained, the system enables long-range, bidirectional communications from a devide to the internet, without a connection or service fee.

The information might include location and status of wilderness users, wild animals of research / public safety concern, environmental monitoring devices, and more.

Enabling opportunities

By supplying an infrastructure that allows devices to be easily deployed and maintained, at minimal cost to individual users and network members, the OLN in widening the support base for environmental and disaster infrastructure.

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Citations

LoRa System for Search and Rescue: Path-Loss Models and Procedures in Mountain Scenarios. Bianco, G.M., Giuliano, R., ... Mejia-Aguilar, A. (2020). IEEE Internet of Things Journal. 8;3. doi: 10.1109/JIOT.2020.3017044

Radio Frequency Identification and Localization by Wearable LoRa for Search and Rescue in Mountains. 2022 IEEE International Conference on RFID. doi: 10.1109/RFID54732.2022.9795986