If you think about locating threats and victims during a disaster (or fighting Xylella, but this is another story) dogs immediately come to mind, with their extraordinary sense of smell. Right? Yet, mice can also be amazing helpers in these situations: the African giant mouse is a phenomenon in the category! A student of the Technical University of Eindhoven (TU/e), Bram van Kasteren, has just demonstrated how these rats can sniff out victims and people trapped under rubble. To help them in the rescue, a small and sophisticated backpack which puts them in communication with their human “partners”.
Rescue rats: present
In collaboration with the Belgian NGO APOPO based in Tanzania, projects have been initiated that include training these “rescue” rats, dubbed RescueRats. Each RescueRat is equipped with its own special backpack. What does it include? A camera, a battery, a beacon (LoRa), a GPS and an altimeter. The mouse is trained to press a button on its backpack when it finds a victim, activating the device that will report its location for human rescue.
The mouse's nose allows it to locate the victim under the rubble, even in places normally accessible to human or dog activities. The beacon is located with receivers placed near the area, allowing rescue teams to accurately determine where to focus their rescue efforts.
Next steps
It goes without saying that the use of these "murine teams" in real scenarios is conditional on an intense training period. On a technological level, however, the system is already tested and works perfectly: the backpack, 3D printed already in 2019, has been tested directly in Tanzania, "home" of the ingenious mouse ideal for these rescue missions. I'll show you the video first.
