From Independent Operations to Alliance Mutual Assistance: The Evolution History of Outdoor Rescue Technology
If we look at how humans have improved the efficiency of cooperation since the Industrial Revolution, we'll find two important clues: technological progress and scientific management.
Especially with the emergence of the Internet, it has given rise to the phenomenon of "fine division of labor in large industries", making information exchange more efficient and breaking through the limitations of geographical space.
For a long time, such cooperation was limited to the traditional workplace. As the threshold for using technology continues to decrease, the high - efficiency cooperation effect brought by the Internet begins to spill over. It starts to shine in some public fields outside the commercial sphere.
The protagonist of this story is the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance". A group of people are connected by hard technologies such as Beidou positioning and satellite communication, Internet technologies behind Gaode Map, and cutting - edge technologies like AI. In numerous outdoor rescue operations, they help those in distress get out of trouble.
Chen Haijun is a member of this alliance. He is the captain of the Beijing Fangshan Blue Sky Rescue Team.
At first, he relied on listening to the description of the surrounding environment from the people in distress and then searched for them based on his own experience. Later, after the improvement of mobile phone functions, both sides would share their locations. Although it was helpful to some extent, the location often drifted two or three kilometers away, resulting in inaccurate rescue routes. Now, there is the support of satellite and AI technologies.
After years of rescue work, he can almost be regarded as a witness to a "history of the evolution of outdoor rescue technology".
01. Who is the Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance?
Chen Haijun first felt the high efficiency brought by the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance" in September last year.
"I have a very deep impression. The first time, it was Gaode that called and sent a message, saying that there was a person trapped in your area." Since Chen Haijun and other team members are quite familiar with the Fangshan Mountain area where the person in distress was located, they found the person quickly after seeing the location.
The "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance" was established in September last year under the guidance of the National Institute of Safety Science and Engineering of the Ministry of Emergency Management and the China Academy of Safety Science and Technology. It was jointly founded by Gaode Map, the Blue Sky Rescue Team, the Shuguang Rescue Alliance, the Green Boat Rescue Team, the Off - Road Vehicle Branch of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers and other institutions.
The rescue scene of the rescue team
It is understood that since the establishment of the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance" half a year ago, it has successfully helped nearly 60 people out of danger. The rescue cases are distributed all over the country, including Beijing, Liaoning, Yunnan, Guangxi, Tibet and other places.
Recently, this alliance has been upgraded again, and technology begins to play a more important role.
Under the guidance of the National Institute of Safety Science and Engineering of the Ministry of Emergency Management, recently, the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance" announced the participation of new members such as vivo, OPPO, BYD Yangwang, Qianxun Positioning, and Xingtu Weitianxin, and issued a new initiative: to fully utilize new technologies such as Beidou and satellite communication, and AI to create a "digital rescue map" and promote the upgrade of outdoor rescue to "precision rescue".
The participation of more mobile phone and automobile manufacturers, as well as high - precision positioning infrastructure providers and weather forecasters, makes the jigsaw puzzle of this alliance more complete.
In the field of outdoor rescue, multi - party cooperation is one of the keys to improving rescue efficiency.
Chen Haijun shared a personal experience of his. "Just these two or three days, two ladies went up the mountain to enjoy the flowers and got stuck on a cliff. When asked where they went up from, they couldn't tell."
Under Chen Haijun's guidance, the two people in distress opened Gaode, searched for "satellite distress signal", and sent their location information on the distress page. "After the operation, after much trouble, I didn't receive the information immediately. It was received by the (rescue team) in Haidian."
The Haidian rescue team immediately forwarded the information to him. Through the coordinate points, Chen Haijun and other team members safely rescued the two people in distress.
Behind this rescue, we can see that the "digital rescue map" effectively aggregates and links multi - party rescue resources, and on this basis, builds an information sharing platform with multiple functions such as safety reminders, communication, and location sharing.
How to use this "map"? Suppose an outdoor explorer is unfortunately trapped in an uninhabited area with complex terrain and no conventional mobile phone signal coverage. He can open the Gaode Map APP on his mobile phone (supporting satellite communication function) to initiate a satellite distress signal. The system can then push relevant information including regional weather, mobile phone signal status, and precise location to the nearest outdoor rescue forces.
The rescue team members can plan the optimal route with one click, drive professional off - road vehicles with complete rescue capabilities, and keep in touch with the user in distress on the way to stabilize their emotions. After the rescue, the data of the entire rescue process can be quantitatively retained for subsequent review and optimization.
The "digital rescue map" breaks the previous situation of scattered rescue forces and enhances rescue efficiency with the power of the ecosystem.
02. Bottlenecks in Rescue
In the rescue process, obtaining the location is the first and most crucial step.
For the rescue team, an approximately accurate location information means the right direction of effort. However, in many rescues, since the people in distress are often in a highly nervous state, they often act in a hurry when sending distress messages.
After getting through the phone with the people in distress, a question Chen Haijun often asks is whether they have installed outdoor software. Based on his usual experience, most of the people in distress are amateur mountain climbers, and the answer is often "not installed and don't know how to use".
Even with Chen Haijun's guidance, by the time the people in distress download the software, complete the process, and send the screenshot to the rescue personnel, basically ten minutes have passed. "It's extremely cumbersome, and some people don't know how to use it. It really drives you crazy."
Another method is to open the mobile phone compass, wait for a minute, and then send a screenshot. However, the uncertainty lies in that "the coordinate points drift quite a lot and are not very accurate", which is the same as using the location sharing function of many software.
When choosing Gaode's satellite distress signal function, Chen Haijun found that the process is much simpler. "Once in danger, open Gaode Map to initiate a distress signal, and the distress message containing the precise coordinates can be sent to the most suitable rescue forces in the vicinity, improving the rescue efficiency."
The "satellite distress signal" function mentioned by Chen Haijun is precisely the underlying technical support for connecting the digital link of the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance". Within Gaode, this project has a very appropriate name, called 'Gaode in the Uninhabited Area'.
Gaode is a map and travel platform that is widely used by people, with about 800 million monthly active users (according to Questmobile data). Usually, Gaode mainly provides route suggestions and guides users to their destinations when there are road networks. However, some users' destinations are grasslands, deserts, gobi... And such travel routes are crucial to their safety.
To keep in touch with the outside world without mobile phone signals means using satellite communication. Gaode's "satellite distress signal" function uses the national heavy - weight technologies "Beidou Satellite" and "Tiantong Satellite".
Currently, some mobile phones support satellite communication, but the functions are relatively basic. They are mainly used to contact family members or call the police in emergencies, such as sending location and text messages for help, or making satellite calls. This function can only be used in places without mobile phone signals, and there are time limits for each call or text message, restricted by the conditions of the satellite system itself.
In contrast, the positioning and route planning functions of the map and travel platform can send distress messages more efficiently and accurately. The traditional methods of phone calls and text messages have greater limitations in effect and are likely to cause waste of rescue resources.
Therefore, mobile phone manufacturers such as vivo and OPPO have joined the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance" to jointly improve the response efficiency of emergency rescue.
03. "Product Thinking" Helps Rescue
In the actual rescue process, the situation faced by Chen Haijun and many rescue personnel is more complex. A key problem lies in the emotions of the people in distress.
About a month ago, Chen Haijun received a distress message. Two children got lost while climbing the mountain. They knew nothing about the climbing route and the location where they were trapped. They also didn't have equipment such as water and lighting. They kept telling the rescue team, "I'm under the cliff" and "I'm so cold that I can't hold on anymore."
Chen Haijun comforted their emotions while contacting Gaode. After getting the coordinate points through Gaode, the rescue team found the two children in less than an hour from the time of gathering.
Of course, we can't just comfort them by phone - in the wild, mobile phone battery is also a precious resource.
Based on the user needs in this rescue scenario, the upgraded "satellite distress signal" function of Gaode further adds the "simultaneous location display" function. One is to avoid waste of resources, such as multiple assistance parties rescuing one person. The other is to help the assistance parties make accurate judgments. The one closer to the person in distress will be dispatched. It also helps the person sending the distress signal understand the location of the assistance parties and the specific progress of the rescue team, reducing anxiety.
At the same time, it also supports the message reply function. Therefore, based on Gaode's "chat room", the rescue team and the person sending the distress signal can have a dialogue.
The satellite distress signal screen of Gaode Map
No product is perfect. Chen Haijun often points out the flaws in Gaode.
He took the product manager of Gaode to look at the map. "In this mountain area, wherever I draw a red line, the (Gaode's'satellite rescue') function can be used. Where there is no red line, it can't be used."
"For example, there is a mountain nearby, 2 kilometers away from here. Even if the mountain is very low, as long as there is a mountain, there are cliffs and ravines. If an old farmer twists his foot while herding sheep on the mountain and we go to rescue him, he can't use this function. I suggest you expand the scope."
The product manager thought for a while and explained, "To achieve positioning, you don't need communication functions. You can know your own position on the map without accessing the Internet. But if you want to send out the information, you need mobile Internet or satellite Internet."
There are mainly two types of mobile phone signals: one is based on GSM signals. No matter whether the mobile phone is in 3G, 4G or 5G network mode, as long as the mobile phone can make calls or conduct data communication, it means it is in a signal - available state. When the mobile phone has no signal from traditional operators, if it supports satellite communication, it can use the satellites in the sky to achieve communication functions.
Currently, there are about dozens of mobile phones in China that support satellite communication, and using satellite communication also requires activating the corresponding mobile phone satellite communication package.
In addition to the Tiantong Satellite, the new version of the "satellite distress signal" function also newly supports the Beidou Satellite (Beidou short - message) communication method. After activating the Beidou short - message service, users with China Mobile's mainland mobile phone numbers can use the cooperation models of mobile phones with Gaode Map's satellite distress signal function to send rescue information in the form of short messages.
With the cooperation of the "Beidou" and "Tiantong" satellites, the scope of supported mobile phone models in the satellite communication scenario is greatly expanded.
Currently, the satellite - communication - supported mobile phones for Gaode Map's satellite distress signal function include dozens of models such as Honor Magic V3, Honor 300 Ultra, Honor X60 Pro, Honor Magic 7 1TB, as well as vivo X200 Pro satellite - communication version, vivo X100 Ultra 1TB, OPPO Find N5 satellite version, etc.
In front of Chen Haijun, the product managers of Gaode Map are "academics". Their logic always carries the thinking of Internet products.
Chen Haijun often complains, "The things studied in the office are still different from those in practice." But it's much better than when they first met. At first, Gaode approached Chen Haijun and actively promoted Gaode's "satellite positioning" function. Chen Haijun said he "didn't take it seriously. It was something new, and I didn't know how to handle it."
Before this upgrade, the product managers of Gaode found him again. After multiple contacts, Chen Haijun gradually found in practice that Gaode was extremely helpful when the location of the trapped person couldn't be determined.
"It's like someone covered my eyes, and Gaode Map gave me a pair of glasses to see the world clearly." Chen Haijun changed his view, and the influence of the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance" is also expanding.
Whether it's Chen Haijun, the product managers of Gaode Map, or other participants in the "Rescue Mutual Assistance Alliance", everything they do has gone beyond simply improving rescue efficiency. In this process, every second saved increases the success rate of the rescued person's safe return by one more point.