Students develop cave safety prototype during 48-hour hackathon

As rescuers race against time to free villagers trapped in a flooded cave system in Laos, a team of Monash University students has developed a prototype aimed at preventing exactly these kinds of emergencies.

Created during the 48-hour UNIHACK 2026 competition, the student-built wearable system - called "ANTRUM" - is designed to help cavers and underground explorers maintain contact, track movement and navigate safely in environments where GPS and phone signals fail.

The project was inspired by the 2018 Thai cave rescue and comes as international rescue teams, including specialist cave divers, work through treacherous flooded tunnels in Laos to reach and extract those trapped underground.

Built by an interdisciplinary team of Monash Engineering and Monash Information Technology students, the palm-sized prototype combines motion sensors, radio communication and a cloud-based dashboard to help users locate exploration partners and find safe exit routes underground.

Maria Demina, a student of Monash Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering, said “We wanted to explore whether technology could help prevent people from becoming stranded in the first place.”

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