GPS World

Tag: MH370

  • Post-Mortem on Flight MH370 Crowdsource Search

    Post-Mortem on Flight MH370 Crowdsource Search

    Janice Partyka
    Janice Partyka

    Last year, in a massive crowdsourcing effort, eight million volunteers from around the world sat at their computers and searched high-resolution satellite imagery looking for signs of Malaysia flight 370, which had left Kuala Lumpur and never arrived in Beijing. The effort was akin to putting thousands of digital helicopters into the sky above 340,000 square kilometers of ocean. The project, organized by DigitalGlobe’s Tomnod group, didn’t find evidence of the plane. More than a year later and with wreckage recently discovered, it’s a good time to do a post-mortem of the crowdsourcing effort that involved amateur GPS citizen scientists from around the world.

    Tomnod provided volunteers with images of the Thailand Gulf, Andaman Sea and areas of the Indian Ocean (West of Australia), an area that had been recommended for scrutiny by AMSA, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority. The area was organized by map tiles, each one-eighth of a kilometer. The images provided to the volunteers were still photos, a snapshot in time. The search followed the core rule of crowd sourcing — redundancy, and all map tiles were reviewed by multitudes of people.

    Malaysian_DigitalGlobe-O
    The Tomnod crowdsourcing website from 2014.

    I signed up to search images, and like others, was instructed to individually tag signs of wreckage, rafts, oil spills and interesting objects. Volunteers submitted 18 million tags for further review. Some of the tags were then inspected by analysts at Tomnod, but the vast majority were analyzed by computer programs alone. Search and rescue organizations were given the results to aid their search efforts.

    With advancements in object recognition, one would think it possible for the initial search to be done by computer vision algorithms. Crowdsourcing could be used to manually clarify or further refine classifications. Tomnod believes identifying objects in the ocean is difficult and best done by humans, but has used digital object recognition in a new project. “For our project of mapping Swaziland to help eliminate malaria, Tomnod uses object recognition algorithms to locate buildings,” says Caitlyn Milton of DigitalGlobe. “Our next step is having crowdsource volunteers manually draw building footprints for each individual building. We either use volunteers or deploy our algorithm to identify the roof types (metal, wood or thatch), which are correlated with Malaria rates.”

    Debris from flight MH370 washed up on Réunion Island in July.
    Debris from flight MH370 washed up on Réunion Island in July.

    Tomnod would have needed a trifecta: the correct geographic area, visible debris and identification of the debris to yield the actual crash site. Unfortunately, even with the discovery of plane parts found last month near Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean and even with analysis of ocean currents and weather conditions, it will be difficult to ascertain if the plane crashed within the Tomnod search area.

    Crowdsourcing is not new to mapping. European countries offered hefty pouches of gold in the 1500s to people who could help solve the puzzle of determining latitude for maritime navigation. The competitors were well educated — mathematicians, astronomers and watchmakers. To contribute today, all one needs is a computer, a wireless connection and free time.

    Next month, I’ll be in Las Vegas at CTIA’s Super Mobility 2015 reporting on industry developments. If you have interesting news, contact me.

  • Boundless Uses GIS Imagery to Search for MH370 Debris

    MH370-Boundless

    Geospatial experts at Boundless, a geospatial IT company, discuss how GIS imagery can help find debris from missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370.

    The blog post Georeferencing Imagery in the Hunt for MH370 takes the complicated location of debris from MH370, and puts it through the open-source software used by Boundless to overlay two major ocean currents, the South Equatorial Current, and the West Australian Current. Prevailing winds graphics and additional vector data of the MH370 search areas and potential flight path are also included.

    “While we wait for additional information regarding the missing Boeing 777, I wanted to examine if GIS could add plausibility that debris may have washed up this far west from the original search areas,” writes Anthony Calamito, solutions architect with Boundless. A piece of a wing known as a flaperon from a Boeing 777 was found on Reunion Island, thousands of miles from the plane’s flight path and official search area. No other Boeing 777 airplanes are missing. Flight MH370 vanished on March 8 last year with 239 passengers and crew.

    Boundless says in the post that the georeferenced and digitized graphics illustrate how the debris could have washed on shore as the surface currents rotating around the Indian Ocean Gyre could have moved the debris in a general western direction.

    According to Boundless, this is an example of how geospatial solutions can use existing data and intelligence to produce answers when none seem to be forthcoming, as it’s been during the search for MH370.

    Read the full blog post here.

  • Missing Plane, New Mapping Abilities, and GPS Jamming

    As the tragedy of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 riveted our attention, many sprang into action. More than two million volunteers scoured online satellite images for signs of the plane via Tomnod, a crowdsourcing project of DigitalGlobe.

    Volunteers like Robert Wilkinson are asked to view satellite photos and tag any signs of wreckage, rafts, oil spills and other objects that may be of interest. “It took me the first hour to understand that I was looking at waves or tidal pools rather than debris or anything useful to the search,” said Wilkinson. “After that, I might have seen one or two things that I couldn’t explain, but I tagged them appropriately.”

    All images that are tagged are reviewed by special algorithms before being viewed by experts. Tomnod reported that more than 650,000 objects had been tagged, and the maps had been viewed more than 98 million times.

    Calls on Flight 370. This month, the Internet was full of questions about mobile communications and the missing Malaysia airplane. People didn’t understand why passengers on board the flight hadn’t made mobile emergency calls. On September 11, 2001, it was widely recalled, some passengers were able to make phone calls from the hijacked planes. Flight 370 was likely too high or going too fast to enable phones to register with cell towers. Experts say that planes flying above 5-10,000 feet would have difficulty making connections. Radar analysis estimated that the plane may have been flying as low as 12,000 feet or as high as 45,000 feet. On 9/11, passengers made calls when the plane was low or used satellite air phones available in business class.

    GPS and Football. Security at places where large crowds congregate is always a concern. At last month’s Super Bowl, GPS devices tracked and monitored the team vehicles. To protect the GPS, a product from Exelis was used to detect and locate GPS interference sources to protect critical GPS signal-dependent infrastructure. Eight sensors were positioned in an array pattern to detect and locate any jamming sources.

    Lost in Space. Google’s Project Tango is showcasing a prototype phone brimming with software and sensors that creates a 3D map of the environment. A select group of developers has been given the device and are expected to create innovative applications, including navigation by sight. We do know that one of these devices will be heading to the International Space Station and will be part of a project to enable robots to explore the inside and outside of the craft. The terrestrial uses of the device will include being able to map the interior of a house (the sofa goes where?), navigate through complicated buildings, provide accessibility for those with impaired vision, and emergency response. Project Tango may find interesting uses with 3D printing, which is riding a wave of interest.

    GPS and LED Lights. Philips has been demonstrating an indoor location-based shopping service based on location positioning from LED lighting infrastructure. The system works by using lighting fixtures that form a dense network that not only provides light, but also acts as a positioning grid. Each fixture is identifiable and able to communicate its position to an app on a shopper’s smart device. ByteLight is another company with LED indoor location technology. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low-energy (BLE) beacons are more established for indoor positioning.

    Truck Market on the Move. Market demand remains strong for mobile resource management (MRM) devices, particularly among local fleets, reports C.J. Driscoll & Associates. “Manufacturers of light and heavy commercial vehicles are becoming increasing involved with telematics,” says Clem Driscoll. “Heavy truck manufacturers are primarily focused on enabling remote vehicle diagnostics.” Many of the large MRM companies are establishing added offices around the world.

    Awkward Timing. INRIX is launching Russia’s first comprehensive traffic information and driver services platform. Russia has many challenges including difficult traffic conditions. The service, available on Audi cars, was developed through an exclusive partnership with Russia’s navigation services provider cdcom. INRIX XD Traffic in Russia provides real-time traffic and incident information covering more than 236,000 kilometers of roadways across 55 cities.