Little Ripper drone turns into lifesaver off Australian shore
SYDNEY — A practice session for Australian lifeguards who were testing a new drone turned into a real rescue when the drone helped save two swimmers at a beach in New South Wales.
On Thursday morning, Jai Sheridan, a lifeguard supervisor who was operating the drone, was alerted to two young men caught in turbulent surf with 10foot swells. Sheridan then steered the drone toward the swimmers.
In video of the incident taken from the drone, it can be seen releasing a yellow “rescue pod” that inflates in the water. The two swimmers grabbed the pod, and with its support they made their way to shore. They were fatigued but not hurt, Surf Life Saving New South Wales, a volunteer organization, said in a statement. The rescue took just 70 seconds.
“On a normal day, that would have taken our lifeguards a few minutes longer,” Sheridan said.
The drone used for the rescue, known as a Little Ripper unmanned aerial vehicle, also is part of a shark-spotting program scheduled for Australian beaches this summer.
“The applications in the water are just phenomenal,” said Michael Blumenstein, a professor at the University of Technology Sydney who oversaw the team that developed the shark-spotting software. “The amount of payload that these drones carry enable them to be really be versatile.”
In cases involving rough surf, remote locations or natural disasters, where conditions may be hazardous and time is a factor, Blumenstein said, drones are able to help operators assess a situation without endangering human lives. Farmers also have found practical applications for drones, using them to efficiently assess the health of their crops, for example.
The software developed by Blumenstein’s team could soon become a vital tool for lifeguards.
“There’s no reason why we couldn’t use it to automatically detect people in the water,” he said.