Search and Rescue Operations requirements in GNSS

Capt. Sameh K. Rashed

Teaching staff member
B.Nautical Dept
Arab Academy for Science and
Technology and Maritime Transport-AASTMT
College of maritime transport and
technology
redmahi@aast.edu
redmahi@hotmail.com

Abstract:
Unquestionably, the achievement of search and rescue operations essentially depends on the time
factor therefore, Search and Rescue SAR operations management developed to provide high reliability,
redundancy, and efficiency as to reduce the response time. It planned using the art of technology in
supporting Missions management, by integrated search plans with the Global navigation satellite system
GNSS advantages of long-term stability and absolute accuracy.
The GNSS is a highly promising technology with communication capabilities providing an enhanced
Search-and-Rescue SAR-service in combination with the current Cospas-Sarsat system.
The accuracy of distress position data is fundamental to SAR missions, and the precise GNSS
navigation equipment can be supportive in covering a search area prudently. Moreover, GNSS allows
small electronic receivers to determine their location within a few meters using time signals transmitted
along a line-of-sight by radio from satellites.
The past decade has perceived a fast improvement of several GNSSs. Some of them are already in
service and GNSSs still under planning or at partial operational stage, besides others are struggled for
many years until being back to full service lately. The paper illustrates the developed features of
GNSS/SAR, which increase effectiveness of SAR operation with the contribution of advantages of GNSS
by demonstrating between the contribution of SAR on GNSS/GPS GNSS/GLONASS and the recent SAR
on GNSS/Galileo the future SAR constellation.
Keywords: GNSS SAR- Galileo - Cospas-Sarsat

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Introduction
Search and Rescue is the heart of civilization. Each year in the worlds time, thousands of incidents
occur resulting in the need for immense search and rescue efforts to be launched. A national or
international Search and Rescue SAR conceder a safety response system that provides specialized
lifesaving assistance by specialists in the event of a major disaster or emergency.
Search and Rescue considered a multi-hazard system, as it needed for a diversity of emergencies or
adversities counting earthquakes, hurricanes, typhoons, storms and maritime emergencies. SAR is an
combined conventional services directed by a joint coordinating group responsible for all types of rescue
operations sea, land and air. Moreover, SAR services achieves through a supportive efforts involving
government interventions, voluntary administrations and private initiatives.

Although present search and rescue efforts are wide-ranging and performed with devotion and
attentiveness, current techniques employed are tolerable. There is no acknowledgement system available
to users in distress. SAR needs presently signalled by secondary inputs.
The advent of new technologies, such as GNSS decrease time and the costs of SAR operations and
increase rescue rates by finding the lost individual in a quicker period. In addition to, acknowledgement
technics art of technology.
1- Origin of the Search and Rescue:
Modern search theory arises during World War II, from Allied military, research directed at
developing ideal search approaches to detect enemy naval vessels, particularly submarines this effort can
be traced back to the work of one man, a mathematician named Bernard Koopman, used possibility to
predict and improve search results. However, in 1973 Dennis Kelly applied Koopmans research
directly to land based search and rescue operations; Since this event, the search and rescue theory has
grown-up and is widely adopted today by authorities the United States Coast Guards is an obvious
example. (Zhang et al, 2003)
Search theory is about maximizing the probability of success (POS) while minimizing the effort
exerted in a search operation. It uses probability and information theory to quantize a search operation
from movements to locations. Common search methodology referred to terms of probability of detection
(POD), Probability of Success (POS), Probability of Area (POA), effort, sweep width, and coverage.
(Nunn, 2003)

2-The core purpose search and rescue system:

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SAR Service is the action of distress surveillance, communication, coordination. This includes the
facility of medical advice, initial medical assistance through the procedures of public and private assets,
including support of airplane, ships and other installations.
The Maritime SAR systems for any regional level recognised to give help and sustenance to people in
distress instantly, and to ensure that persons in distress will support without respect to their localities,
nationalities, or statuses.
The Maritime Search and Rescue Act define the maritime SAR services as the search and rescue of
persons in distress at sea, facilities of emergency medical services for them and conduct of radio
communications related to an emergency phase. (IAMSAR)
SAR system, like any other systems has individual components that must work together to offer the
effective consequences. The essence of the maritime SAR system is of recognition, response and
reporting, it can be viewed as the corners of the following triangle fig (1).

Source: (Rashed, 2011)

The response to a SAR occurrence usually proceeds through a sequence of five typical phases. These
phases define the nature of SAR assistance provided at any particular time. A SAR episode may not
necessarily include each phase, or the phases may overlap as following. (Rashed, 2011)
Awareness
SAR service becomes attentive of an actual or potential incident.

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 Initial Action
This phase may include evaluation and classification of the information, alerting of SAR
amenities, preliminary communication checks, and in urgent cases, immediate action from other
phases.
Planning
Effective operations plan developed, including plans for search, rescue, and final provision. SAR
plan is a general term often associated with three types of plans: a national, regional, or multinational SAR plan.
Operations
SAR operations are normally coordinated at the lowest practical level within the SAR
organization. However, SAR facilities proceed to the scene, conduct searches, rescue survivors,
support distressed unit, provide emergency care for survivors, and transport survivors to a
suitable facility
Conclusion
Return SAR units to their regular position, and debriefed, refuelled, replenished, provided with a
fresh crew, prepared for another mission and records of the SAR case, which is completed.
(Goodrich, 2007)

2-1 Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC)

The RCC is responsible for coordination of SAR operations within its assigned SAR Region.
Moreover, receive a complete session, including past, existing, and predicting weather, from the relieved
watch review all entries in the log pertaining to ongoing missions, failed missions closed during the past
24 hours, and other matters requiring action; stay informed about the mission-ready status of all SAR
resources; and, test main lines of communication, as it apt. (IAMSAR)
2-2 Emergency alerting and Communications
Persons in distress have a diversity of alerting ways, ranging from sophisticated electronic devices
to waving a piece of cloth; SAR personnel should be familiar with emergency signals and devices. The
Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB), Emergency Locator Transmitter (ELT), and
Personal Locator Beacon (PLB) are devices specifically designed to transmit emergency signals to alert
the SAR system and that can be located by satellites and by direction finding (DF) equipment. Each
device is battery operated and engineered for a particular environment. EPIRBs are maritime devices and
as such are required to be waterproof, corrosion resistant and able to float upright on their own (for those
designed to float). ELTs built to survive the tremendous force of an aircraft crash. However, they carried
inside the aircraft and are usually less waterproof and non-floating. PLBs designed to manually activate
and operate on land.
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3- GNSS Search and Rescue:

3-1 Background:
Since 1970, the satellite-aided search and rescue commenced, when a plane carrying two U.S
congressmen crashed in a remote region of Alaska, immense search and rescue efforts mounted, but to
this day, no trace of them or their aircraft ever been found. At the mentioned time, search for missing
aircraft conducted by search aircraft flying over thousands of square kilometres trying to find the lost
aircraft. Because of this tragedy, Congress recognized this inefficient search method and issued an
amendment to the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 requiring most aircraft flying in the United
States to carry emergency locator beacons (ELTs) to provide a local homing ability. Then suitable
technology established by NASA to detect and find an ELT from ground stations using the beacon signal
relayed by satellites to run more coverage that is global. (Ali, 2013)
This circumstance generates a highly effective global search and rescue technique of COSPASSARSAT (COSPAS is an acronym for the Russian words Cosmicheskaya Sistema Poiska Avariynyh
Sudov), which translates to Space System for the Search of Vessels in Distress that relies on SAR
payloads on weather satellites in low-earth and geostationary orbits.
In 1979 Canada, France, the United States, and the prior Soviet Union established SARSAT
which an acronym for Search and Rescue Satellite-Aided Tracking). The system has 43 participating
countries and has been involved in saving thousands lives worldwide. (COSPAS-SARSAT, 2014)

4-Types of Satellites

Fig (2b) SAR Events Assisted by CospasSarsat

Fig (2a)-SAR Events and Persons Rescued with the Assistance of

Cospas-Sarsat Alert
Source: Cospas sarsat, 2014

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- Figure (2a) illustrate the number of persons rescued per year from 1991to 2012 by the aids of using
COSPAS-SARSAT. the figure illustrates the number of rescued person's effortlessly increased through the
period.

- Figure (2b) demonstrates the SAR events assisted by Cosapas Sarsat and it's clear that the maritime events
have the majority by 43% of the total events.

4-1Low Earth Orbiting Search & Rescue (LEOSAR):

- 6 satellites on Orbit
- Polar orbiting and 101 to105 min. per orbit
- Orbit is 850 km in altitude
- Performs Doppler positioning function (primary means of positioningnot GPS
- Accomplishes Doppler locating occupation
- Space segment altitude 850 km in Pole-Pole orbital pass
- Stores & Forwards alerts continuously for 48 hours (Provides global coverage twice per day)
- 406 MHz beacon recognitions can be stored on board the satellite and re-broadcast later.
- Provides improved recognition possibility for obstructed beacons that cant be seen by GEOSAR

Fig (3) LEOSAR Instantaneous Coverage

Source: Cospas sarsat, 2014

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Fig (4) - 57 LEOLUTs in 46 Locations6

Source: Cospas sarsat, 2014

4-2 Geostationary Orbiting Search & Rescue (GEOSAR):

- 5 satellites on Orbit
- Performs instantaneous alerting service and no positioning ability unless beacon fitted out with GPS.
No Doppler shift capability
- Space segment altitude 36,000 km above the Earths surface in fixed orbit
- Continually monitors a large area of Earths surface
- Coverage from 70N 70S
- GEOSAR system does not cover the polar areas. (Cospas SARsat, 2013)

Fig (5) - 23 GEOLUTs in 20 Locations

Source: Cospas sarsat, 2014

5- Search and Rescue on GPS SAR/GPS:

The emergency beacons that uses by mariners and aviators and land users, detected by uses satellites
after making the calculations at the control centre LUT. Since the year 1982, search and rescue satellite
provides alerts to critical emergency distress and position information to the search units, and SAR
services for over 30 years SARSAT provide lifesaving amenities in the rescue of peoples in distress
situations. The current system of SARSAT which contains two satellites constellations working to
support the global distress are LEO and GEO as it was mentioned before.
The SAR global positioning satellite system is the new Generation of to the present SARSAT, which
will use SAR payloads in GPS III satellites, it will operate in MEO- orbits. The constellation that
equipped with Canadian supplied SAR repeater payloads, use frequency difference of arrival (FDOA) and
Time difference of arrival (TDOA) algorithms in reverse triangular calculations to allow near instant
global detection and beacon positioning. Overall act of the SAR operations will expand, and more
accurate position will gained,(the position error will reduce to about 0.9 NM).
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It will reduce the search time and saving lives by its quicker alerting and the significantly reduce the
time needed to detect the beacon in distress (3 minutes, and calculate the estimating beacon position in 5
minutes from the time of activation).
Furthermore,

the beacon in distress will detect from continually changing angle resulting in

reducing land masking, the beacon to satellite link is continuously changing so it provides flexibility
against the link between beacon and satellite obstruction whats make it resilience to interference. (U.S.
Government, 2014)

6- Search and Rescue on Galileo SAR/Galileo:

The role of Europe to the international cooperative efforts on the Search and Rescue programme
represented by SAR/Galileo, it provides, backward compatible SAR service through the application of
transparent SAR transponders on board Galileo satellites and dissemination of SAR Return Link
Messages in the Galileo navigation signal. In addition, it will reduce the false alert rate, which is one of
the major shortcomings of the current system and support the three types of 406 MHz SAR Beacons:
First- generation beacons: it transmits, after activation, a plain SAR signal.
Second-generation beacons: it transmits, after activation, a signal containing its position
information.
Third- generation beacons: it transmits, after activation, a signal containing its position and have
the ability to receive Return Link Messages. The first and second generation beacons defined
before by COSPAS-SARSAT system, while the 3rd generation beacons represent the new,
MEOSAR Beacons.

6-1 New supported services:

The system will provide two services, the Forward Link Service, that provides message from the
SAR beacon to a MEO Local User Terminal of the International SAR Satellite Service and localisation of
the beacon by the MEOLUT, and the second service is the Return Link Service that provides message
from the SAR ground segment to a 3rd generation beacon. (Hahn et al, 2002)
6-1-1 Forward Link Service (FLS):
It is a connection from the SAR beacon to the International SAR Satellite Service MEOLUTs via
the Galileos satellites, through second and third generation; beacons can transmit their position with
probability of detection and recovers higher than 99.8%. Moreover, the Forward Link Service is the
localisation of first generation beacons by measuring the Times of Arrival (TOA) and the Frequencies of
Arrival (FOA) of the SAR signal as relayed by various Galileo SAR Payloads at one time. The position
acquired by the processing of the collective TOA&FOA measurements will be better than 5 km within 10
minutes (98% of the time). ( Molina, 2011)

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6-1-2 Return Link Service (RLS):

RLS relays return Messages from the Return Link Service Provider (RLSP) to third generation
beacons via the Galileos Navigation Signal. The RLS provides Technical Acknowledgments, after
successful detection of third generation beacon, and operational acknowledgements, this service will
provides basic data dialogue between the persons in distress and the SAR operators thereby attains many
possibilities as it will be better fit the distress situation requirements, improve the psychological state of
the persons in distress, and reduce the false alert rate.

Satellites
Galileo Satellites

SAR Payload

1st
Generation

- MEO-LUT
- MCC

2nd
Generation

Mission
uplink

R
RLS
International
SAR sat service

rd

3
Generation

Ground Seg

Galileo
Ground

Segment

Fig (6) - SAR/GALILIO Component

Source: the author

7- The Future enhancements of SAR/SAT:

The new SAR constellation will consists of new GPS satellites operated by the United States,
navigation satellites of Russia (GLONASS), and European GALILEO navigation satellites, this
component of Cospas-Sarsat is known as Medium-altitude Earth Orbit Search and Rescue systemMEOSAR, the combined system once fully started it will drastically improve both the speed and
positioning-accuracy for locating beacons in distress. (Aguilera, 2013)
As MEOSAR complete operational, it will offer LEOSAR and GEOSAR systems advantages
without their current limitations. It will offer transmission of the distress message, and independent
location of the beacon, with a near real time global coverage. Moreover, the large number of MEOSAR
satellites that will be in orbit when the system is completed, it will allow each distress message to relay at
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the same time by several satellites to several ground antennas, improving the possibility of detection and
increase the accuracy of the beacons positioning determination and track it during its movement.(Curtis et
al, 2004)

Fig (7) - The MEOSAR System Concept

MEOSAR system aiming to be reliable and accurate, so Cospas-Sarsat enter a Demonstration and
Evaluation (D&E) phase for the MEOSAR system at the beginning of 2013, to begin in 2014 and D&E
phase is planned to end in 2015 and will be followed by the MEOSAR Initial Operational Capability
(IOC) phase. (ICAO, 2014)
Conclusion:
SAR operations are precious, as it aiming to save lives and help people in distress. The current
technique is adequate for the recent time but future require more technologies to increase the efficiency
and reliability of the SAR operations.
The paper describes, furthermore, the current system and future improved system to ensure backward
compatibility with existing COSPAS-SARSAT Beacons, and the Main missions and concept of the MEO
Search and Rescue system, and the two provided new services the Forward and the Return Link
Service. Moreover, the three MEOSAR satellite constellations will use transparent repeater instruments to
relay 406 MHz beacon signals, without on board processing, data storage, or demodulation, which
achieves near instantaneous global coverage with accurate independent location capability.

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References:
- Aguilera, Carmen (2013) European GNSS Applications in H2020, European GNSS Agency, Countdown to
H2020, workshop 12-12-2013, Brussels
-Curtis W. Chen & Alina Moussessian (2004), MEO SAR System Concepts and Technologies for Earth Remote
Sensing, Space 2004 Conference and Exhibit 28 - 30 September 2004, San Diego, California
- Goodrich, M., and J. L. Cooper, J. Adams, C. Humphrey, R. Zeeman, and B. G. Buss,(2007) Using a Mini-UAV
to Support Wilderness Search and Rescue: Practices for Human-Robot Teaming, Safety, Security and Rescue
Robotics proceedings, 2007
- International Civil Aviation Orgnization (ICAO) reports, (2013), http://www.icao.int/publications/Pages/MRTDReport.aspx?year=2013
- INTERNATIONAL COSPAS-SARSAT PROGRAMME,(2014) COSPAS-SARSAT DEVELOPMENTS FOR
FUTURE SYSTEM ENHANCEMENTS The Second Meeting of the ICAO Asia/Pacific Search and Rescue Task
Force (APSAR/TF/2) Singapore, 27 30 January 2014
- IAMSAR Manual Vol (I)
- Jrg Hahn, Bart Peeters, Igor Stojkovic, Luis Ruiz, & Josep Perlas (2002), Search and Rescue Mission on
Galileo: Implementation Aspects, [Online]. Available , july 2014, www.esa.int
- L. H. Nunn, An introduction to the literature of search theory, CNA Corporation, Tech. Rep., October 2003
- Mustafa. Ali (2013), GNSS Vulnerability and the need for Resilient PNT Australian Maritime Safety Authority
(AMSA), GNSS Vulnerability Workshop 2013 UNSW, Sydney (4 December 2013)
- Molina, P., and I. Colomina,(2011) Integrity Aspects of Hybrid EGNOS-based Navigation on Support of Searchand-Rescue Missions With UAVs, Proceedings of the ION GNSS 2011, September 1923, 2011, Portland, Oregon,
USA
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maritime disaster management, al khobar KSA.
- Zhang, W., Cannon M.E., Julien O., and Alves P. (2003). Investigation of Combined GPS/GALILEO Cascading
Ambiguity Resolution Schemes, Proceedings of U.S. Institute of Navigation GPS/GNSS (Portland, OR, Sept. 9-12),
pp. 2599-2610.
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2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.gps.gov

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