NASA recently announced that it sent its heartbeat-detecting tech FINDER to Turkey to aid in the country's recovery efforts after getting hit by devastating earthquakes on Feb. 6.
The FINDER tech, which stands for Finding Individuals for Disaster Emergency Response, is a NASA spinoff device that can find persons buried under rubble.
HATAY, TURKEY - FEBRUARY 16: A man sits on the debris of collapsed buildings on February 16, 2023 in Hatay, Turkey. A 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit near Gaziantep, Turkey, in the early hours of February 6, followed by another 7.5-magnitude tremor just after midday. Burak Kara/Getty Images
All About the FINDER Tech
The initial prototypes were built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security before being licensed to SpecOps Group Inc. of Sarasota, Florida.
Microwave radar is utilized by FINDER to identify minute movements of the body brought on by physiological functions such as heartbeats and respiration.
Even though these minute movements are difficult to notice with the naked eye, microwave radar's wavelengths can cut through thick layers of debris and dirt, according to NASA.
"Your body moves a millimeter when your heart beats. Because the rubble itself isn't moving, we can separate those motions out. Then, we look to see if the motion shows both heartbeats and respiration," Jim Lux, task manager on the FINDER prototypes, said in a statement last month.
The capability of FINDER to distinguish between human and machine motion and even between humans and animals is essential in the chaotic environment of search and rescue operations.
The prototypes were constructed inside a Pelican case, a ruggedized carrying case often used to transport expensive gear and apparatus.
Last week, NASA's Earth Observatory took satellite images of the Turkey-Syria earthquake to highlight the extent of its damages.
The initial earthquake was caused by a fault that was located 18 kilometers (11 miles) beneath the surface of the earth. The shallow depth of the earthquake resulted in intense shaking that was felt hundreds of kilometers away from the epicenter.
After nine hours it was followed by a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and numerous small aftershocks.
After the incident, satellite data was processed and studied by space agencies like NASA to determine the extent of the damage.
Portions of the cities of Türkolu, Kahramanmaraş, and Nurdai may be seen on NASA's initial damage proxy map.
The map was produced using data from the PALSAR-2 on the Advanced Land Observing Satellite-2 (ALOS-2), which was launched on February 8, 2023.
The satellite is equipped with a synthetic aperture radar, a sensor that maps terrain by beaming microwave pulses at the planet's surface.
Scientists were able to start identifying damaged locations by comparing the data from February 8 to measurements taken by the same satellite before the earthquakes on April 7, 2021, and April 6, 2022.
