Smart rescue from the air: innovations for safety on the water
About
The Water Rescue Drones research project is developing an autonomous drone system to support water rescue operations. The aim is to make rescue operations on, in, and around water faster, safer, and more efficient through automated launches, AI-supported search algorithms, and intelligent communication interfaces. The system is designed to assist rescue workers in searching for missing persons, illuminating operation sites, and locating people in distress, thereby saving lives.
Opportunity
Operations in and around water are among the most challenging scenarios in civil protection. Factors such as weather, tides, currents, limited visibility, and difficult access to the scene of the incident make rescue operations considerably more difficult. Time-critical decisions are necessary to save lives—but a shortage of skilled personnel, limited resources, and a lack of real-time information often hinder rapid action. While drones are already being used successfully in other areas of hazard prevention, their potential in water rescue has hardly been exploited to date.
Solution/Product description
The Water Rescue Drones project is developing a fully integrated, semi-autonomous drone system that is specifically tailored to the requirements of water rescue. The drones take off automatically from the bases of water rescue organizations, carry out search flights independently, and transmit real-time data to the operations center via Wi-Fi, 5G, or satellite connections. In addition to visual searches, sensors and AI-based evaluations support the positioning of people, taking into account currents, tides, and weather data. The drone can also drop buoyancy aids with radio interfaces, illuminate the scene of the accident, and provide initial acoustic feedback to accident victims.
Why Us
Water Rescue Drones combines state-of-the-art drone, communication, and AI technologies into a system that is specifically designed for the dynamic, high-risk field of water rescue. The high degree of automation, modular architecture, and integration into existing control center infrastructures lay the foundation for a new generation of intelligent rescue systems. Close cooperation between research, industry, and emergency response organizations has resulted in a practical, robust, and scalable system—with the goal of significantly speeding up rescue operations and increasing the safety of both rescuers and victims alike.
The project partners are Fraunhofer IMTE, West Coast University of Applied Sciences, and NXP Semiconductors.