Design and testing of an autonomous ARTVA detector for small drones

Avalanche rescue operations require quick localization of buried people. Organized rescue intervention is often not fast enough, since professional rescuers are not directly present in the avalanche area. Therefore, companion rescue remains the most effective option for rapid response, especially in case of employment of avalanche transceivers. In this context, the AVERLA project is developing avalanche localization instrumentation for small drones, to provide winter mountain recreationists, athletes and rescue teams with a fast and accurate system to improve the buried search. In this paper, a custom radiofrequency localization system, tuned on the avalanche transceivers transmission frequency, is described and its performance is assessed. Last, the integration of the instrument on an off-the-shelf drone, as baseline for further miniaturization, is presented.