AWARD YEAR
2017
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Industry, Innovation & Infrastructure
KEYWORDS
safety, Drone
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
DESIGNED BY
Designer: Jon Kuster
WEBSITE
http://www.rca.ac.uk/students/jon-kuster/
Open Water Guard
A drone-based sea rescue system which proposes to fly a self-inflating raft to fallen overboard.
Since 2000 there have been over 285 people going overboard on big cruise ships alone. Sixty-eight have been found dead, 200 are still missing. Once a victim found to have fallen overboard through heat-detecting cameras and/or coordination chips placed in their room cards are identified as being off the ship, a drone is dispatched from the automatically stopped ship, carrying a self inflating object to the victim, coordinated by the chip and/or heat cameras. This keeps the victim safely afloat until the security team rescues them. The drone also hovers above the person as it blinks – acting as a flashlight, making it easier for them to be discovered by the rescue team.