Search and Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT)

Search and Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT):

The Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) has developed a newer version of its own Search and Rescue Aid Tool (SARAT).

• Search and Rescue Aid Tool was launched in 2016 for facilitating search and rescue operations in the seas to locate individuals/vessels in distress in the shortest possible time.
• This has been initiated and developed under the Make in India program and developed by the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS).
• The tool uses model ensembling that accounts for uncertainties in the initial location as well as the last known time of the missing object, to locate the person or object with high probability.
• The movements of the missing objects are governed mainly by the currents and winds.
• The tool is based on model currents derived from a very high-resolution Regional Ocean Modelling System run operationally on High-Performance Computers at INCOIS.
• The user has the option to select up to 60 types of missing objects (based on shape and buoyancy).
• Users can select a specific point where the object was last seen using the interactive map or they can also select a coastal location, distance travelled and bearing angle so that the last known location of the missing object is estimated.
• The results generated are displayed in an interactive map depicting the probable area to be searched and are also sent as text messages to emails/mobile phones.
• All the requests and responses are provided in the languages of the coastal states so that local fishermen can use them immediately to search for their fellow fishermen in distress.
• In SARAT version 2, the position from which the search area expands has now been corrected to be the last known position of the object.
• It further offers improved visualizations for a better judgement of a probable area of finding the missing object, colour coding of search regions, and a marker for easier identification of the last known position of the object.