Search and Rescue Algorithm identifies hidden “traps” in ocean waters


New method may help quickly identify regions where objects -- and missing people -- may have converged.


The ocean is a messy and turbulent space, where winds and weather kick up waves in all directions. When an object or person goes missing at sea, the complex, constantly changing conditions of the ocean can confound and delay critical search-and-rescue operations.


Now researchers at MIT, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), and Virginia Tech have developed a technique that they hope will help first responders quickly zero in on regions of the sea where missing objects or people are likely to be.


The technique is a new algorithm that analyzes ocean conditions such as the strength and direction of ocean currents, surface winds, and waves , and identifies in real-time the most attracting regions of the ocean where floating objects are likely to converge.


The team demonstrated the technique in several field experiments in which they deployed drifters and human-shaped manikins in various locations in the ocean. They found that over the course of a few hours, the objects migrated to the regions that the algorithm predicted would be strongly attracting, based on the present ocean conditions.


The algorithm can be applied to existing models of ocean conditions in a way that allows rescue teams to quickly uncover hidden “traps” where the ocean may be steering missing people at a given time.


“This new tool we’ve provided can be run on various models to see where these traps are predicted to be, and thus the most likely locations for a stranded vessel or missing person,” says Thomas Peacock, professor of mechanical engineering at MIT. “This method


uses data in a way that it hasn’t been used before, so it provides first responders with a new perspective.”


Peacock and Pierre Lermusiaux, also a professor of mechanical engineering at MIT, who oversaw the project, and their colleagues report their results in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications. Their coauthors are lead author Mattia Serra and corresponding author George Haller of ETH Zurich, Irina Rypina and Anthony Kirincich of WHOI, Shane Ross of Virginia Tech, Arthur Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard, and Pratik Sathe of the University of California at Los Angeles.


HIDDEN TRAPS


Today’s search-and-rescue operations combine weather forecasts with models of both ocean dynamics and the ways in which objects can drift through the ocean,


The Report • September 2020 • Issue 93 | 63


by Jennifer Chu MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology


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