AvaRange – using sensor network ranging techniques to explore the dynamics of avalanches

Snow avalanches are an ever-present reality in alpine regions - They can cause heavy damage to settlements and infrastructure. Thus, understanding the behavior and the dynamics of avalanches is an important challenge. Current modeling and simulation techniques of avalanche dynamics do not yet consider a precise description of the inner dynamics. In this paper, we present AvaRange, a measurement based approach towards a better understanding of these dynamics. AvaRange adapts ranging techniques that we successfully applied to sensor networks to track particles that move with the avalanche. In particular, we place sensor nodes in rugged spheres and deploy them in an avalanche slope. The idea is that after triggering the avalanche, the sensor nodes collect ranging data to determine their relative position. We present first results of ranging techniques in snow fields from a series of experiments that confirm the feasibility of our approach.