Work

Identification of Initial Areas for Maritime Search and Rescue Operations Through Drifting Buoy Data Assimilation

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The Search and Rescue at Sea Manual defines several uncertainties related to the initial position and the time elapsed between an accident and the onset of SAR operations. The present article seeks an approach to address this problem through the assimilation of drifting buoy data and their use in correcting the system parameters via an ill-posed inverse problem. The results demonstrate that, in the search for objects at sea, the uncertainty of their initial position must be explicitly considered. Quantitatively, the proposed methodology reduced the uncertainty of the initial search area by approximately 55–60% compared with the traditional approach that assumes a single deterministic initial point. This outcome underscores the potential of data assimilation techniques to enhance the probabilistic accuracy of maritime search and rescue planning.

Source: Mathematics

DOI: 10.3390/math13213435

Authors: Serguei Lonin, Iván Plata, Carlos Romero-Balcucho, Jesús Navarro

Institutions: Escuela Naval de Cadetes "Almirante Padilla", Universidad de Bogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano

Language: English

Topic: Maritime Navigation and Safety

Subfield: Ocean Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137

Funder: Science and Technology Directorate