RescueFly

Drowning is one of the most common causes of unintentional injury-related deaths worldwide. The DLRG (Deutsche Lebens-Rettungs-Gesellschaft e.V. – German Lifesaving Society) states that most victims in Germany drown in inland waters. Alerting and pinpointing the location of emergencies in the water pose special challenges for the rescue chain. With the help of drones, people in distress can be detected quickly in most cases and rescue resources can be sent more rapidly than by using helicopters, boats or lifeguards. Water rescue using drone support thus becomes a valuable component of the rescue chain.

RescueFly intends to develop and deploy decentralized – in modern and technically advanced drone garages – stationed drones (so-called Unmanned Aircraft Systems UAS), which are connected with a rescue center and equipped with adequate sensor technology, to support water rescue in difficult-to-access and extensive areas. An exemplary area of application is the Lusatian lake landscape, in particular the lakes Geierswalder See and Partwitzer See, which are located in the federal states of Brandenburg and Saxony.

The project aims at developing AI elements for image recognition and flight mission optimization. The mission is to be simulated in a virtual environment to analyze the location of drone garages and flight trajectories of the drone to the deployment points for different scenarios and to optimize them in an automated way. The goal is to shorten the rescue time in water rescue by locating casualties on the water surface with the help of the autonomous drone and navigating rescue forces to the casualty with pinpoint accuracy.

Further information can be found in the press release (in German).

If you have any questions about the project, please contact Alexander Szanto.