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More on lifesaving drones -

Via the FT:

Australia’s lifesavers make waves with use of rescue drones

Technology becomes popular tool deployed by first responders



A yellow flotation device is dropped from a flying drone toward two teenagers caught in a riptide in heavy seas off the Australian coast © AP

Jamie Smyth in Sydney


When two swimmers got into trouble at an Australian beach last week, onlookers held grave fears for their safety. But the quick thinking of local lifeguards resulted in what authorities billed as the world’s first ocean rescue by a drone.

“One of our trainees flew the drone 850m up the beach, spotted the swimmers and deployed an inflatable rescue pod, enabling them to get back to shore,” says Mark Phillips, a drone pilot who was training surf lifesavers on the use the devices nearby. “It took about 70 seconds while our land-based lifesavers got there in five minutes.”

The rescue at Lennox Head beach, south of Brisbane, highlights how drone technology is changing the world of lifesaving and is becoming a popular tool deployed by first responders such as firefighters, lifeguards and mountain rescue.

China’s Dà-Jiāng Innovations Science and Technology (DJI), the world’s largest civilian drone maker, last year published a report identifying 59 instances when drones have helped rescue people from life threatening situations.

These include finding 19 missing people in terrain ranging from snowbanks to mountains and swamps, as well as delivering rescue ropes and life jackets to people during floods.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg, many instances go unreported,” says Kevin On, director of communications at DJI.

He says many life-saving organisations are adapting DJI’s larger drones by adding drop boxes to deploy life jackets or bottles of water. “By attaching a thermal imaging camera to our drones, search and rescue teams are able to identify people that are lost when hiking in the wild or in difficult terrain in remote areas,” says Mr On.

"..In the broader disaster relief situations, drones could deliver medicine, food or water and vital information to rescuers.." - Eddie Bennet, chief executive of Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver group

In July a mountain rescue team in Lochaber, Scotland, used a drone to help locate a missing, injured female hiker on the Sgurr á Bhuic mountains. A month earlier a drone found two lost hikers and their dog in the Pike National Forest in Colorado within two hours of being dispatched by rescue teams.

Drones can often be deployed quicker than helicopters and get closer to the ground to search for missing people. They are also significantly cheaper to buy and operate, with a standard commercial drone costing several thousand dollars.

An added benefit of drones is their ability to respond to natural disasters and operate in dangerous situations without putting human lifesavers at risk, says Lian Pin Koh, director of Adelaide University’s Unmanned Research Aircraft Facility.

“Using drones for disaster response is gaining significant traction. By attaching sophisticated thermal imaging cameras to a drone it is possible to detect people under rubble,” he says.

In September the American Red Cross teamed up with drone maker CyPhy Works and the UPS Foundation to survey damage caused by Hurricane Harvey. It used a tethered drone, which was connected to a power source, to enable it to stay airborne for days at a time to assess flood damage and funnel aid to areas in need.

Short battery life is one of the main challenges in deploying drones in life-saving environments. DJI’s M600 model, which is used by lifesavers in Australia, has a battery life of up to 36 minutes.

Tight regulation is another. In Australia and the US, drones can only be flown during the day and in line of sight of their operator in an effort to avoid collisions with other aircraft and enhance public safety.

But in October the Trump administration launched a pilot programme to allow the testing of drones at night and outside of line of sight of their operator — an initiative that could speed up their integration into lifesaving roles.

“Safety is our paramount concern and we work very closely with the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority,” says Eddie Bennet, chief executive of the Westpac Little Ripper Lifesaver group, which operates more than 50 drones in co-ordination with lifeguards across Australia.

But he believes drones will play a bigger role in lifesaving in the future.

“We are working closely with a company developing electronic shark deterrents, which can be dropped into the water, and we already can drop the world’s smallest defibrillator from our drones,” he says. “And in the broader disaster relief situations, drones could deliver medicine, food or water and vital information to rescuers.”

Drones used in detecting sharks

Drones are not just dropping rescue pods to swimmers in distress in Australia, they are also warning swimmers when dangerous sharks are in the water.

The Westpac Little Ripper group and University of Technology Sydney have partnered to develop shark detection software that uses artificial intelligence to analyse images captured by the drone in real time. When it detects a large shark near swimmers or surfers, the drone can use its warning siren to alert them to danger or send text messages to lifeguards on the beach.

“The algorithm we have developed learns from experience by analysing lots of video footage of sharks in the water. It has an accuracy rate of up to 90 per cent,” says Michael Blumenstein, head of UTS school of software.

The research team is working on introducing multi-spectral imagery technology, which should enable the programme to penetrate deeper or murky water for sharks. The AI drone software has other applications, such as being adapted to look for marine craft.

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