Looking for a lifeguard that won’t get all out of shape like David Hasselhoff? A research lab in Iran is working on one – a robotic lifeguard that can respond instantly to passengers and crew who fall from ships by flying to their rescue and dropping a life preserver to them.
The flying robot is called Pars and it is ship-based. The quadcopter can be alerted when someone falls overboard, or is pushed overboard. Once it’s launched, Pars scans the area around the boat with a thermal sensor and drops a life preserver to keep them afloat until crew members can get to them. Hopefully the Baywatch theme is playing while all of this is going on.
Right now, the prototype Pars drone can only hold one life preserver ring, but the goal is for the ‘bot to hold up to three, allowing it to respond to multiple people. It’s a great concept and if they can pull it off, this one could save many lives.
Think about how many cruise ships lately have had problems and you start to see how this could be a real winner.
[via Robots.Net via Geekosystem]
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