Real-life rescue drama inspires little life-saver
STUDENT DESIGNS DRONE THAT CAN COME TO THE AID OF SWIMMERS FLOUNDERING IN THE WATER
A student who saw the dramatic rescue of a teenager pulled out to sea while bodyboarding has designed a drone to help save others in danger.
In 2017, while on holiday with his family in Cornwall, Loughborough University student Dominic Leatherland saw the teen become detached from their bodyboard due to rough conditions.
He watched as two off-duty lifeguards battled the waves to reach the struggling casualty, hampered by the height of the waves and speed of the water.
At one point the teenager was without a flotation aid for about 35 seconds and, while the rescue mission was successful, Dominic wondered why a device could not fly over the waves and drop a flotation device for the casualty.
The product design and technology student decided to explore the idea for his final year project and found drones for this scenario had been prototyped.
However, these were large, commercial drones and carried big, bulky rescue equipment – meaning they could not be easily loaded on to the back of a rescue quad bike or a car and certainly not transported on foot.
Dominic, who has held a National Pool Lifeguard qualification for six years, wanted to design a smaller and more portable system that could be deployed much faster, even by emergency personnel without specialist lifeguard training.
He has come up with Servita, a small, compact drone that flies above hazardous waters to locate individuals in distress and deploys a buoyancy aid that automatically inflates when hitting the water, helping casualties stay afloat while they wait for a rescue team to reach them.
The proposed design uses technology such as GPS, a live-feed camera, and two servo mechanisms that allow the pilot to control the pitch angle of the camera and the inflatable-release mechanism.
The inflatable buoyancy aid uses technology inspired by automatic inflating lifejackets, but Dominic said its use and deployment via drone is a new idea.
He said: “I picture Servita being used by beach lifeguards and emergency services to provide rapid support to individuals who are in aquatic distress and the time in which they can be rescued is increased by variables such as distance, sea conditions and location, or the casualty is deteriorating rapidly.
“This product is needed to help save the lives of weak swimmers where rescue cannot be performed immediately. The early intervention of Servita can provide could be the matter of life and death for some casualties.
Dominic has created a functional prototype and accompanying inflatable, and testing has been conducted on a small scale.
He has already been offered a job after university with respiratory and ballistic protection manufacturer Avon Protection, but hopes to one day develop Servita further and conduct tests over open water in simulated emergency scenarios.
Servita is being showcased as part of Loughborough University’s Degree Shows 2021. See: