A‐Life: Saving Lives in Avalanches

We present a novel approach to enhance avalanche companion rescue using wearable sensing technologies. The time to find and extricate victims is most crucial: once buried by an avalanche, survival chances drop dramatically already after the first 15 minutes. Current technology offers only information on the location of a single victim, however statistics show that in many cases there are multiple victims. In our research we show how wearable sensors can further enhance such devices and how this additional information can be visualized. A prototypical implementation offered a basis for participatory evaluation with practitioners in the field.