Urban search and rescue
A line paid out into collapsed structure, keeping searchers and the surface in contact through rubble no radio crosses.
Use cases
Four settings where being out of contact underground is a problem worth solving.
Cave rescue
When the time between “something is wrong” and “the surface knows” is the whole problem.
A rescue underground is run on information that has to be carried out by a person, then carried back in again. Every decision waits for a round trip. A line into the casualty site turns that into a written exchange the surface can read as it happens, rather than a report remembered by the time someone reached daylight.
What it changes
- Written contact between the casualty site and the entrance
- Coordination between underground teams without runners
- A line that can be pushed deeper as the operation develops
Expeditions and research
Long trips, deep systems, and a surface camp that would rather not guess.
On a multi-day push the surface spends most of its time without information, and the underground team spends part of its energy on trips made only to pass a message. A permanent line down the main route changes the shape of the whole expedition: short messages and readings, temperature and humidity from beacons or a surveyor’s short notes, reach the surface as they happen, plans change without a courier, and the overdue clock starts from something better than a guess.
What it changes
- Short notes and beacon readings out as they happen, without waiting for the exit
- Survey and instrument data out without waiting for the exit
- Fewer trips made purely to pass a message
Show caves
A public cave has staff, visitors and a duty of care. All of it underground.
The visitor route is fixed, which makes it the easiest kind of installation: the line follows the path that already exists and stays there. What it buys is the ability to reach a guide in the middle of a tour, to handle an incident away from the entrance without evacuating the whole route first, and to know that the person deepest in the cave is not the person hardest to contact.
What it changes
- Staff communication along the visitor route
- A way to reach a guide mid-tour
- Coverage for incidents away from the entrance
Mines, tunnels and underground works
The same problem with a different ceiling.
A working heading advances, and so does the point at which communication stops. Laying the line as the works progress keeps the front of the job connected without waiting for a permanent installation to catch up. The radio runs on licence-free bands; the national rules are confirmed before deployment.
What it changes
- Communication along a working heading
- A line laid as the works advance
- Licence-free radio bands; national rules confirmed before deployment
Beyond the cave
Where a line one person can lay could go next
LoCave is built for caves. But a fibre line light enough for one person to carry in and pay out is useful anywhere a link is needed quickly and no infrastructure exists. The images below are concept illustrations made to explore that idea. They show possibilities, not installations.
Rail and road tunnels
A temporary link along a live tunnel during inspection or works, laid and recovered without touching the fixed installation.
Pipelines and linear infrastructure
Monitoring and communication strung along a route that is long, thin and a long way from any network.
Remote base camps
A kilometre of fibre off a reel, joining a field camp to the work site without waiting for anyone to dig.
Polar and remote stations
A link between buildings and instruments in ground where trenching a permanent cable is not an option.
Forest and jungle operations
A line strung through canopy for teams working well outside radio contact, under cover that defeats satellite too.
Agriculture and field sensing
Sensors and irrigation controls connected across ground where cellular coverage is thin and a trench is expensive.
Pressurised modules
An inline link through a habitat where cable routes are fixed, mass is budgeted and there is no room to run a second one.
Off-world exploration
The furthest the idea has been taken on paper: the same rapid-deployment line, laid across a surface with no infrastructure of any kind.
All nine images in this section are concept illustrations. The use cases above them are not. Those are what LoCave is built and proven for.
Who we build for
The people who told us what was missing, and who the system is shaped around.
Cave rescue services
Volunteer and professional teams who need a line they can lay under time pressure, in the dark, in kit they are already wearing.
Caving clubs and expeditions
Groups working a system over years, for whom the cost of the equipment decides whether it comes along or stays in the store.
Karst research institutes
Researchers with beacons underground whose temperature and humidity readings are currently collected by going and fetching them.
How can LoCAVE help you?
Send us the survey, the passage, or just the problem. We will tell you plainly whether LoCave is the right answer, including when it is not.