Australian SAR Data

We have been collecting data on land SAR incidents in Australia since 2000. In November 2003 we wrote a draft report that was presented at the NATSAR council but not generally released. It was styled after the U.K. report. In June 2006 we released the final version (see the Downloads page), which has evolved its own style.

Our data was collected using the form availible on the Downloads page (or an earlier version thereof). The form itself helps define what is meant by each term or category, and is essential to interpreting the data. We have also prepared a definition key in the report, to explain our terms more precisely. The UK report gave us the idea, but there are some differences in defintion.

SORAL: SARBayes Optimal Resource Allocation Library

Public Beta Released 9 May 2003!

Web-based Source code archive and bug-tracking and wiki system! Alive again, on CVSDude!

SORAL is a tool for SAR programmers: a clean, modular, object-oriented, open-source API for optimum resource allocation for land SAR. It does the hard math so you and your SAR program don't have to. SORAL takes a probability (POA) map and some information about resource availabilities and effectiveness, and shows how to maximize the probability of success. It offers a variety of algorithms for different conditions. It also allows user-defined allocations and computes the Coverage, POD, total POS, and the new probability map that result from any allocation.

It is written in C++, and has an API User's Guide, a Developer's Guide, and extensive source-code documentation. If you are a programmer wishing to use SORAL, read the User's Guide (the public interface and how to use it). If you wish to write algorithms for SORAL or modify SORAL, read the Developer's Guide.

SORAL is available on our Downloads page. It is available under the GNU General Public License and also under very reasonable licenses for proprietary (closed-source) redistribution.

In addition to the C++ code, we have implemented the Washburn algorithm in MATLAB. That code also runs under Octave (Octave is a GNU free software implementation of Matlab 5.0). See the Downloads page.

AGM SAR program

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*** Search and Rescue 2001 ***
***       Main Menu        ***
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[1] Resource Properties
[2] Save Project
[3] Map Area Properties
[4] Assignment Adjustments
[5] View Current Resource Assignments
[6] Request Resource Allocation Advice
[7] Update POAs using current Resource Allocation
[8] About AGM SAR

[0] Exit
Please enter an option : 

AGM-SAR is a very robust text-mode Windows/Unix program to do optimal resource allocation. Because it is only text-mode and has no predefined resources, it is not ready for field use, but it shows what might be done. The development version uses the SORAL library, and is available by request. The version available here uses the Charnes-Cooper algorithm, and so is limited to single resource pools (or multiple resources on the unrealistic condition that resource effectiveness does not vary by area). Features:

• Excellent documentation
• Both menu mode and batch mode
• Save and reload state
• Complete session log
• Easy readable text format for input files
• Very robust

You may obtain the pre-SORAL version of AGM SAR from our Downloads page. Once again, although we think SORAL is very high-quality code, this version is not really suitable for field use.

AGM SAR was originally developed by a team of students for a senior project, and remains the property of the AGM group, which has agreed to let sarbayes.org redistribute the binaries. AGM are also usually willing to give out the source upon specific request.

Probability Mapper

Probability Mapper (PM) is a proof-of-concept Microsoft Windows application to automatically create initial probability distributions based on known case details. The program performs Bayesian network inference to assign probabilities to user-defined regions within the search area, displaying this and other useful case information graphically. It was (very loosely) tied to AGM-SAR for resource allocation. It is not under active development. This makes us sad.

PM is available by request only. See our Downloads page for details.

PM uses the Netica API to read the Bayesian Network models of lost-person behavior. Netica is copyright Norsys Inc., who have graciously agreed to allow us to include their API with our program without paying license fees, so long as we do not charge for the program.