A Turkish company has tested a remote control drone than can drop liferings to help MOBs
If you thought drone helicopters were just for filming vainglorious running shots of your boat, think again.
Turkish company RTS Ideas has come up with a way of using these remote-controlled helicopters to save lives.
Their creation is called Pars and it is capable of delivering up to three liferings to those in distress in the water.
Inspired by the story of six students who drowned in the Caspian Sea in July 2013, the RTS Ideas team set about creating a prototype that could potentially save several lives at once.
Pars uses eight rotors to generate enough lift to carry three liferings, while a radio control system allows the coastguard to take control if necessary.
Even once the liferings are deployed, Pars isn’t finished – it can record aerial video of the vicinity to warn rescue vessels of any potential obstacles.
Following four days of tests on the Caspian Sea this summer, RTS Ideas proved that its drone can fly at speeds of up to 16mph and has a maximum flying time of ten minutes.
The final test was to pit Pars against a trained lifeguard to see who could reach a distressed swimmer 75-metres offshore in the fastest time.
The robot thrashed his human counterpart by 22 seconds to 91 seconds.
However, there’s no suggestion that Pars would make a human lifeguard completely obsolete, as a lifering dropped from a height would be of little use to an unconscious MOB.
Final design corrections are the next step for the Turkish team, after which they will be looking for funding and sponsorship to introduce Pars to the global search and rescue market.
To see a video of the search and rescue drone in action, click on the player below:
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