When they’re not being used in remote warfare, or flown by GoPro hobbyists, drones are being put to much more benevolent uses. In the past week, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) have invited people to see firsthand how drones can be used in search and rescue missions along UK coasts.
Off the coast of Llantwit Major in south Wales, the RNLI and MCA will be running four representative search and rescue scenarios to imagine the advantages of using drones in emergency situations.
The drones will be used in an open water offshore search; a shoreline search along cliffs; a mud rescue using high sand dunes to represent mud gullies; and, finally, a communications ‘black box’, where a casualty cannot be contacted, according to Hannah Nobbs, who's leading the RNLI’s work with drones. They will also be bearing in mind a fifth scenario of tidal inundation, though not simulating it on the day.
In the open water search, the team will be using bespoke search and rescue mannequins with added heat sources so that drones can employ their heat sensors in detection. “Where we have a gap in capability is searching for very small targets in the water. When it’s just a person – they’re not a canoe, or a vessel – they’re very difficult to find,” Nobbs says. They’re therefore looking at whether sensor-equipped drones can be more effective.
In 2017, the RNLI helped 8,072 people and launched lifeboats 8,436 times across the UK and Ireland. Now, it want to use emergent technologies to amp up their capacity. The organisation put out an open call to the drone industry back in November, asking companies to return as collaborative teams. “We’re interested not just in somebody turning up with a drone and flying that drone out to something, we want to look at how can you integrate this stuff into our systems.”
Each team has been self-funding, “so they are investing quite a significant amount to come and take part in this,” and benefit from the chance to take part in real-life runthroughs. If the RNLI and MCA judge the technology to be mature enough, it’s possible they will conduct a regional pilot, and go out to tender – so there are added incentives for the companies participating, who, Nobbs estimates, will have invested between £20-30,000. Participating organisations include Lockheed Martin UK, Scisys and the University of Bath.
The team at the RNLI has been really pleased that meaningful collaboration between companies has come about, as they believe it will enable them to finetune the process of information transfer at the crux of their programme, which is especially important given the need to coordinate with the coastguard. “All of the drones, really, are just a way of getting information to people,” Nobbs says. A maritime controller and an air controller will coordinate activities, and “part of the challenge is to feed information back to them to help them make decisions about where they’re sending the boat or the coast rescue teams.”
They’re using different drones in different scenarios. In the offshore search, they’re using fixed-wing drones for their high endurance. These will operate beyond the pilot’s line of sight, taking off five nautical miles from where the rescue mission is. They’ve had to consult with the Civil Aviation Authority and Cardiff Airport to agree a segregated space within civilian airspace.
“What it does means is there is a willingness and an agreement that for the future of search and rescue there’s an interest in trying to make this more routine,” Nobbs says. In other scenarios, they’re using small fixed-wing drones launched from a cannister, multi-rotor drones with vertical take-off and landing, and – for the communications black box situation – a tethered drone with high endurance.
The RNLI’s innovation team is looking into means of ‘future life-saving’ beyond drones: they spend time working with industry and academia to ‘horizon scan’ – to see how emerging technologies can enhance their search and rescue capabilities and improve their crews’ safety.
They’ve also been looking into ‘smart watersides,’ where embedded sensors in the environment can be used to influence people to behave in safer ways. “For example, a lot of rescues we go to are not people that intended to be in the water at all – they are walkers. So things like the internet of things in remote locations, where there are many people going past a footpath, we can start to build a risk picture to try and prevent search and rescue from having to happen in the first place,” says Nobbs.
Earlier this year, a rehearsal for a similar drone-deploying mission off the coast of Brisbane in Australia turned into a real rescue mission. Pilots spotted two swimmers beyond safety flags and sent the drone to drop off a “rescue pod” – like a float – to help them safely to shore. Nobbs says the sand dunes they’re visiting are some of the biggest in Europe and the team often comes across people in need of help. “We’re hoping not to end with a real rescue scenario – but we’ll have all the right people there!”
She also says the RNLI will be trialling the transfer of equipment in the mud rescue situation, but that this won’t be their main focus because “it’s of quite localised benefit, and there’s a lot more that can be done with this technology... We want to start from the point that you can’t assume that the casualty can help themselves. So we’re looking at getting to people that are in very grave need of our help.”
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
