Little Ripper Lifesaver (drone)

2018: Rescue of drowning

In January, 2018 there took place the operation first in the history on rescue drowning by means of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Incident occurred on Thursday, January 18. Two surfers of 16 and 17 years could not cope with three-meter waves and appeared in water at  the coast of the State of New South Wales (Australia). Their acquaintance who remained ashore addressed rescuers then to the aid to surfers  the Little Ripper drone took off  and reset them the capsule with the self-inflated liferaft.

Rescue drowning drones

It is reported that rescuers prepared for carrying out tests within the program for decrease in number of attacks of sharks when to them the signal of the sinking surfers arrived. Then they attached to the drone special means for rescue of drowning and directed.

All process was imprinted on  the camera fixed on  the drone. On the personnel it is visible how  the UAV resets drowning a special raft  using which teenagers could be selected on  the coast.

According to rescuers, all transaction took only 70 seconds that much quicker than average 6 minutes which are usually spent for reaching drowning.  Perhaps, specifically in this situation these minutes would solve nothing, but occasionally they can cost someone life.

This first rescue in the world. Never earlier the UAV was used for rescue of surfers. It is surprising to see that investments of the government of New South Wales into this technology already led to rescue of two people — the Deputy Prime Minister of the state John Barilaro said.

Drones were purchased by rescuers within the pilot program in December, 2017, it cost to the budget $430 thousand. All of them are intended for the different purposes: for detection of sharks, rescue of drowning, is also equipped with loudspeakers and flashers.  After the incident local authorities said that the experiment already completely was repaid.^[1]

2017: Recognition of sharks

Drones with artificial intelligence and advanced technology of image understanding patrol the coast of Australia, helping to prevent attacks of sharks on people. In December, 2017 the USA Today edition reported about it.

The unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) developed jointly with specialists of the Sydney technology university at a financial support of WestPac Group bank under the name Little Ripper Lifesaver are capable to distinguish with a 90 percent accuracy a silhouette of a shark in water whereas at observation naked eye accuracy does not exceed 20-30%. According to the edition, drones already registered appearance of sharks near the coast twice and warned about danger rescue services which evacuated people from beaches.

Little Ripper Lifesaver

Scientists trained an UAV system to define sharks, having loaded hundreds of thousands of photos into its database. Thanks to artificial intelligence, drones study, and over time they will distinguish better and better sharks and to distinguish them from other sea inhabitants and surfers.

Nabin Sharma, the employee of the Sydney technology university who developed software for drones calls the UAV "an additional eye in the sky".

Flying over the coast, drones shoot video which is analyzed in real time — the specialist explains.

According to Nabin Sharma, in addition to observation, drones can be used for delivery of the rescue means to swimmers which are in danger. Also the possibility of a public address system is provided in the UAV.

We can activate the built-in megaphone, send to rescuers of the message by the SMS or e-mail and to reset inflatable plavstredstvo on water — the specialist told.

In plans of scientists — to expand possibilities of drones and to train them to distinguish crocodiles who are widespread in the north of Australia and also to observe the animals who are under the threat of disappearance.^[2]

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