Survival Drone

[Frankenblob]

Tho it never happened to me and I have heard it happen to another, and that is a hunter who parked his truck and wasnt able to find it for quite some time - either days or weeks later as the logging roads and their little off-shoots looked "the same". Now why he never "tagged" trees with spray paint or ribbons or...beats me.

So I wonder if Elon could put a homing device into ones cyber truck and have it paired with a drone, so if one goes way out into the bush and gets lost he could send the drone up and "locate" his vehicle and/or have a "hikers drone" in the event that one is "lost" he could send it up so as to scope the area and, if its dark, have it do an SOS in bright white LED lights which could aid a search and rescue party.

Maybe these exist, I do not know but I have yet to hear about "survival drones" that can be used by hikers or hunters or bird-watchers....

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[ajdelange]

A much, much simpler solution is to simply note one's GPS coordinates (or the 3 word equivalent) and then navigate back to those coordinates using a cell phone or handheld GPS receiver.

 

[Frankenblob]

A much, much simpler solution is to simply note one's GPS coordinates (or the 3 word equivalent) and then navigate back to those coordinates using a cell phone or handheld GPS receiver.

Will it work without internet, as phones, in the main, do not have signals in the bush. Since the military uses advance drones to check ahead and around and such (these drones are VERY small and compact) it could work.

 

[Crissa]

Will it work without internet, as phones do not have signals in "the bush".

It will work as long as you can see the sky. The GPS satellites have world-wide coverage.

And even in the redwoods, it'll get you within a hundred feet. That's easy enough to search.

-Crissa

 

[Frankenblob]

It will work as long as you can see the sky. The GPS satellites have world-wide coverage.

And even in the redwoods, it'll get you within a hundred feet. That's easy enough to search.

-Crissa

Yes, i see that now, thanks.

 

[ajdelange]

GPS does not require a cell connection. There is no doubt that a cell phone could be used for such an application in a place of no cell coverage. There is a question of convenience. What3Words interfaces very nicely with Google maps. If there is no cellular connection to provide maps data then I don't know how the interface would look. Just a grid, I guess. I think there are also ways to download Google maps data to your cellphone for a region where there is no cell service. This would be another way to handle this. But as I said, it can be handle with nothing more than the raw lat and lon output of a GPS app on your phone.

A Garmin GPS receiver would, of course, do this handily and not require cell phone service. Of particular interest to hunters might be the unit that comes with collar(s) for your dogs so you can see where they are relative to you when they are out of site in the woods. This model had a special button for marking "truck" and another for marking "camp" as I recall.

Now there are places in the world, such a tropical rain forrests, where GPS does not work because the canopy is so dense. I don't think you'll run into that in North America.

 

[ajdelange]

Another thought: if you carefully study the drone regulations in Canada I think you will conclude that is is illegal to fly them. Of course if you are lost in the woods Dudley probably won't be around to catch you.

 

[DarinCT]

Will it work without internet, as phones, in the main, do not have signals in the bush. Since the military uses advance drones to check ahead and around and such (these drones are VERY small and compact) it could work.

Diving deeper, phones do not normally use true gps. All modern phones are gps capable for emergency services geolocation. If you can't call emergency services though, I'm not really sure how that work. Rather, almost all phones use Assisted GPS also called aGPS . They use a combination of cell tower triangulation and access to the internet. When one uses Google maps, it is aGPS.

I would recommend against relying on your phone for true GPS.

 

[ajdelange]

Back in the old days we had C/A code, SA and a handful of SV's. GPS was, in those dys, plenty good enough for finding your truck in the woods (as long as GDOP wasn't too bad as it sometime was because there were so few SVs, and the canopy wasn't too thick). Today we have 31 SVs in the GPS system plus however many there are in GLONASS (which most receivers process) WAAS (now SBAS) and probably lots of other stuff I'm not aware of. I'll make bold and say 2DRMS is better than 2m for GNSS (GPS) alone, If you can't find your truck with that kind of performance your vision is so poor you shouldn't drive.

Now if you want even better than 2m you can collect info from cell towers, WiFi etc. But the notion that GPS isn't good enough is absurd.

 

[Crissa]

Even in Google Maps, you can drop a pin of where you park, and even if the maps don't load without cell service, you can tell the direction and distance of that pin from your current location.

You can also download the maps ahead of time. 'offline maps'

-Crissa

 

[Newton]

or, like, get a map and put a dot where you parked. if your deep in the woods you should have a physical topographic map.

but the dji mavic mini is quite small and light, long range, great specs. (although i think it requires a phone as the remote control)

 

[Eye of Elon]

Or just get a gps app on your phone that doesn't require data connection. I love bushwhacking and having my phone track me has kept me from losing my car, many times.

 

[Cyberman]

How about if you just summon the CT?

 

[Luke42]

How about if you just summon the CT?

In order to do that, you'd have both data and GPS at the vehicle and at your phone. The scenario kind of supposes that you're out of cell range.

If you have cell service + GPS, there's a better option than summoning the truck through dense foliage: just query the truck's location (have it send you the GPS coordinates), and then you can do the old bearing-and-distance routine to find it.

 

[fritter63]

How about if you just summon the CT?

Let's hear it for the brush/tree clearing saw option on the CT!