It's a race against the clock when someone falls overboard: People's chances of being found before they drown from exhaustion or freeze to death dwindle by the minute. Rescue efforts are often hampered by the time it takes a vessel at full throttle to halt so a rescue boat can be deployed and start searching for the person who is by now far from the ship.
The data paint a grim picture: Figures from e.g. the Cruise Lines International Association show that more than 70 percent of people that fell overboard between 2009 and 2019 died.
Researchers at DTU are working to improve these odds by developing a prototype for a fully automated drone that can be automatically dispatched from a moving ship as soon as such a man overboard event is confirmed.
The drone has three types of cameras so it can e.g. see at night and spot body heat, which enables it to identify a person in the water. Once it is fully developed, the drone will carry an inflatable life jacket that sends a GPS signal.
"This has a two-fold purpose: One is to extend the person's life in the water—the other is to guide a lifeboat to them easily," explains PhD student Dimosthenis Angelis.
A life jacket can extend survival time in 4-10°C water from 30-60 minutes to a much as three hours according to the Life Jacket Association. Survival time depends on several things including the state of the sea and the person's swimming ability.
