General details
EDIHs involved
Challenges
Sea rescue today faces challenges related to response time and carbon emissions. With increasing pressure to reduce environmental impact, the need for digitalisation and more fuel-efficient operations is growing. Drone-assisted sea rescue has the potential to significantly shorten time-to-rescue, save fuel, and reduce emissions through optimised flight paths and real-time situational awareness.
Remote Aero, in collaboration with the Swedish Sea Rescue Society, is working to transform sea rescue operations through green digitalisation and drone technology. To meet these challenges, two innovative solutions were developed through an innovation dialogue with Aero EDIH.
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The first was the conceptualisation and testing of a smart and safe landing software, which enables automatic into-wind landings, reducing ground speed and minimising risks for both personnel and the rescue vehicle.
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The second solution involved exploring a novel wide-field electro-optical system that delivers real-time imagery to the operator without adding complexity or weight to the drone, improving both efficiency and safety in rescue operations.
Solutions
Aero EDIH matched the challenges with solution providers that tailored the digital solutions to Remote Aeros needs, and took part in a three-day demonstration activity at the Swedish Sea Rescue Societys facilities in the archipelago of Gothenburg.
The landing solution, utilising real-time edge-calculated wind speeds, was developed and integrated into the software system of the vehicle, and also distributed open source for the benefit of the wider drone community. The landing solution was merged into Ardupilot open source flight control system, enabling millions of Ardupilot users around the world conduct safer operations for fixed-wing drone landings. This marks a conclusion on a triple helix collaboration, where basic research from Linköpings University was matched with end-users need, enabled by a European Digital Innovation Hub (Aero EDIH), and commercialised by the EDIH:s customer (Remote Aero AB).
The electro-optical system, based on a fixed wide-field camera, was tested and developed on the drone system without using additional actuators, thereby transforming vibrations and directions of the view to a software solution.
Sea Rescue in Sweden is predominantly conducted by the non-governmental organisation called Swedish Sea Rescue Society (SSRS), operating 230 rescue vehicles at 74 rescue stations, and is largely funded by donations and membership fees. The organisation is very innovative and has for a long time been working with partners to achieve a more efficient organisation. One of the main partners for the green digitalisation effort using drones is Remote Aero AB, and this was a large part of the rationale behind the public/private investment and funding of the solutions from Aero EDIHs part. One very noteworthy aspect of the safety part of the project is that it is made open source enabling safer drone landings.
Results and Benefits
The solutions provided by Aero EDIH have had quantitative and qualitative impacts on Remote Aeros possibility to support Swedish Sea Rescue Society’s operations, specifically through the enhancement of drone-assisted sea rescue. These results include:
Increased Safety and Efficiency:
Quantitative Impact: The smart landing software, designed to facilitate automatic in-wind landings, reduced ground speed by the wind speed (between 10-80%), directly minimising the risks for ground personnel and lowering the possibility of vehicle damage.
Qualitative Impact: The ability to land drones more safely and with greater precision has improved operational confidence, allowing the rescue teams to operate in more challenging weather conditions without increased risk.
Remote Aero now has enhanced digital capacity to operate drones autonomously, providing a level of operational efficiency that wasn’t achievable before. This transformation reduces human involvement in high-risk landing situations, offering a safer and more streamlined rescue process.
Open-source Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing:
Qualitative Impact: By releasing the landing software as open-source, Aero EDIH has contributed to the wider drone community. This initiative promotes collaboration, innovation, and further development of drone technologies, allowing other entities to benefit from and build upon the digital solutions created.
New Capabilities Enabled by the Solution:
The customer can now perform automatic drone landings in challenging wind conditions, which was previously a significant obstacle.
Perceived social/economic impact
The implementation of Remote Aero’s drone technology for the Swedish Sea Rescue Society is expected to generate social and economic impacts by improving the efficiency, safety, and cost-effectiveness of sea rescue operations.
Social Impact: The introduction of drones equipped with smart landing software and wide-field electro-optical technology have the potential to enhance the safety of both rescue personnel and individuals in distress. Automatic in-wind landing will reduce risks for ground teams, mitigating the potential for accidents during high-stress rescue missions. By enabling drones to handle challenging conditions autonomously, rescue teams will face fewer hazardous situations. Additionally, the wide-field electro-optical system will provide real-time, high-resolution imagery, facilitating faster decision-making and more accurate rescue efforts. This technological advancement will likely save lives by reducing response times, particularly in remote or dangerous areas, where human-operated rescue teams would be slower to deploy.
Economic Impact: The reduction in manual intervention required for landing and monitoring drones will lower the operational costs of sea rescues. Fewer resources will be expended on maintaining and operating manned rescue vehicles, as drones can be deployed more cost-effectively, covering larger areas faster and with fewer personnel. This also reduces fuel consumption and maintenance costs for rescue boats and helicopters. Moreover, real-time imaging improves the precision of rescue efforts, minimising wasted time and resources.
As the drone-assisted sea recue operations is in the first stages of operational testing, verified tangiable results in figures for the improved sea rescue, such as time-to-rescue is in evaluation.
Measurable data
Reduced ground speed in landings by the wind speed between 10-80%, depending on the wind speed.
DMA score and results - Stage 0
The T0 DMA assessment score is 54%, wherein the stengths lie in Digital Business Strategy (70%) and the weakness lies in Green Digitalization (40%). As the 2nd DMA is pending, analysis was performed before the project on how to best support the improvement, a focus on generating measurable results on fossile fuel reduction based on data points gathered using the companies digital products at the end-customer side.
Lessons learned
The method of using innovation dalogues in order to collaboratively evaluate problems and potential solutions in order to select feasible digitalisation efforts to improve products and processes is highly advicable. When conducting the innovation dialogues it is valuable to invite both technical experts along with innovation experts and proffessionals with a variation of backgrounds to evaluate the ideas from different perspectives.