Remotely Connecting Life Rafts for Lifting

Lifting life rafts – with people in them – to the safety onboard a nearby ship, would be a very fast way to rescue people after a mass evacuation at sea. But if the helping ship has to launch a rescue boat to connect the rafts, that means putting the crew in harms way. How might we use an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and an automatic hook – or som other creative solution – to connect life rafts remotely?

Plan/Status/Ambitions

This is an initial call. Our research so far has not given indication that an obvious solution exists. Any level of work furthering the field would be appreciated, e.g.:

• Research into existing projects, technology and products
• Ideation about possible solutions
• Research and development of technologies that would make the idea possible
• Development of a working prototype

Problem/Background

Lifting life rafts – with people in them – to the safety onboard a nearby ship, without having to transfer people one by one from one rescue appliance to another, is the core idea of the www.first-rescue.org mass rescue project.

To show the feasibility of this idea, the FIRST team has developed and repeatedly tested equipment and methods to launch a small rescue boat from a ship, to connect life rafts, and to recover the rescue boat again, all in realistic rough sea conditions.

The development of boats, cranes, cradles, etc. is ongoing, but however well we design these systems, there will always be a reluctance – for many good reasons – to put personell on the water. That’s why we would like to explore ways to connect rafts remotely.

This is a situation most crews are not trained for 

The challenge of connecting life rafts remotely could be divided in two main areas:

1 Getting the end of the lifting wire to the lifting point on the life raft

Most modern ships can maneuver to a close distance from a raft, or even get it alongside, but ship sides can be high, and waves and wind will make it difficult to impossible to connect by hand.

As an initial project constraint, expect a ship to be able to maneuver a crane to within 25-100 m from a raft.

There are then two challenges in geting the wire to the raft:

• Physically getting the wire there
• Remotely aiming or maneuvering or, preferably, automatically acquiring the raft connection point as a target and automatically navigating to it

2 Connecting the wire to the lifting point

Once the end of the lifting wire is close enough to the life rafts lifting point, or whatever extension of it that is deemed appropriate, a mechanism has to be able to securely lock the wire to the raft and give clear feedback of successful connection.

It seems reasonable to make the raft side of the arrangement as simple/dumb/light/low tech/cheap as possible. There are more rafts than ships!

The yellow lifting strop is a modification to the raft to make it possible to connect from a boat. Remote connection will require other modifications

Result/Solution

One possible solution might include putting an Unmanned Arial Vehicle, UAV (also known as a Drone) on the end of the lifting wire. Some of the things a UAV solution would require:

• A light lifting wire, e.g. Dyneema
• A UAV strong and fast enough to pull the weight of the wire, and the wind force acting on it in high winds
• Sturdy enough to withstand harsh environment and possibly falling into the sea
• Having propellers or other means of lift covered to prevent tangling
• Light enough to reduce risk of injury if it falls on a raft
• Might be powered through the lifting wire

There might be any number of other solutions; a long fishing rod, a swimming drone…

Inspiration/Research

This is a Life Raft that would be a good starting point. It was designed for lowering into the water fully loaded, but can just as well be lifted with people inside: http://goo.gl/ebd4Iv

UAV:s can be made sturdy and protected from getting tangled: http://youtu.be/KXVtUCABiv8

And don’t miss Sergei Lupashin TED Talk on Fotokite, a drone on a leash! https://www.ted.com/talks/sergei_lupashin_a_flying_camera_on_a_leash

An other tethered drone:
http://www.droneaviationcorp.com/tethered-drone.html