European Search-and-Rescue Project Ready for 2016 Deployment
Photo: Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation.
The 24 project partners working on Europe’s Integrated Components for Assisted Rescue and Unmanned Search Operations, or ICARUS, project demonstrated the final step of the search-and-rescue concept, paving the way for its adoption in 2016.
Held July 9 through 10 in Lisbon, the European Commission-funded project, which started in 2012, uses advanced robotic platforms that can intervene in crisis scenarios on both land and at sea. During the final trials, the partners from nine different countries demonstrated the effectiveness of using unmanned technology in a maritime scenario. It coupled both unmanned maritime vehicles and unmanned aircraft systems linked through a network.
“Let’s say that a passenger ship strands or drowns in high sea, but the atmospherical and maritime conditions do not allow the search and rescue teams to perform the victims’ rescue operations in safety,” says Aníbal Matos, researcher from INESC Technology and Science and lecturer at the faculty of engineering of the University of Porto, one of the people responsible for the trials. “One solution would be to use autonomous robots that can help these teams in catastrophic situations.”
