The drone fleet that launches the moment the sea floor feels the wave.
A weather-hardened, high-visibility aerial platform — painted red and yellow to be seen from far away — that maps evacuation routes, broadcasts warnings, and surveys the coast. It deploys automatically when a DART station reports a change in seafloor pressure.
Select a component on the model or a chip to see what it does and what it's made of.
DART — NOAA's Deep-ocean Assessment and Reporting of Tsunamis — uses a seafloor bottom-pressure recorder to sense the weight of the water column above it. When a passing wave shifts that pressure past a set threshold, the station jumps from routine reporting into event mode. TRITON listens for that jump: the same signal that warns forecasters becomes the trigger that puts the fleet in the air.
TRITON's LiDAR and radar don't just build a map for responders — they resolve into something anyone can use. Each clear corridor to high ground becomes a standard Google Maps walking route, so the survey a drone flies overhead turns into turn-by-turn directions in a survivor's hand. When TRITON spots a blocked road, it reroutes and the link updates.
Routes open in Google Maps — already on most phones — with turn-by-turn walking directions to high ground.
A QR code puts a route on any phone in seconds — printed on signage, held up at shelters, or shown on screens.
The same link works on phones, laptops and public displays, and can be texted, broadcast, or read aloud over radio.
The aircraft that maps a coastline in calm weather is the same one that survives the storm, warns the people in its path, and helps find them afterward.
Notional design targets for the TRITON-1 platform.