alt Hacker NewsIs this solving a real problem?
A radar suitable for a small port or harbour is not particularly expensive. You can pick up a very nice complete system for ~$5k, a budget system is ~$2k.
Does this system cost less than that (I can't realistically see how), while providing coverage as good as a purpose built marine radar? What happens if your passive signal source goes down.
Worst case disaster relief scenarios during the first weeks-months, before all of the gear shows up. Historically there have been some pretty big wins from using what's around to do stuff it's otherwise pretty bad at.
Have attended a few tech-focused talks from disaster relief people, I can't recall specific examples sadly. I only remember being surprised by the amount of time the first people to show up and help had to spend working under assumptions that needed to be made because of the complete lack of ability to communicate and coordinate. Very basic things like when and where helicopters/boats are going, and who has what. IIRC it was after a devastating tsunami