Weak-Signal Interpretation for Search-and-Rescue Sensing Pipelines

This bridge paper applies the Spanda weak-signal interpretation architecture to search-and-rescue sensing pipelines.

Search-and-rescue operations often begin with scattered, incomplete, and ambiguous clues rather than clean person-location claims. This paper argues for a stratified sensing architecture in which weak clues are preserved as bounded findings, interpreted provisionally, allowed to widen short-horizon attention, and promoted only through declared predicates, rationale preservation, and human/team review.

The paper contributes a minimal operational surface: a light S0–S4/R0/Q0 state ladder, a bounded clue object, illustrative transition predicates, a promotion checklist, and compact examples showing how weak SAR clues may matter before they justify stronger operational consequence.

It does not propose a full SAR command system, autonomous dispatch platform, person-identification system, or replacement for trained search coordinators. The contribution is architectural and decision-support oriented: weak clues should be allowed to influence attention before they harden into tasking decisions, durable search hypotheses, or ignored noise.