Portuguese researchers develop maritime search and rescue technology
The initiative gathers 24 partners from ten countries with the goal of creating robotic devices which can be used in search and rescue operations in land and at sea. The project began in 2012 and will now enter its final year. Next year, there will be a demonstration of the tools applied to the sea in a simulated disaster scenario off of Lisbon’s naval base.
“The ICARUS will not bring solutions to everything, but it is an important contribution to make rescue operations faster and more effective, and several institutions are interested in it”, says Aníbal Matos, one of the researchers responsible for the project at INESC TEC.
In Portugal, a robot life raft was developed to aid the specialised teams working “in adverse weather conditions, when the sea is heavy, or at night. These robots are capable of moving, sensing and avoiding obstacles using radars, lasers, acoustic systems and cameras. “They also have a system to automatically inflate the rafts only when they closer to the victim”, Aníbal Matos explains.
Infrared system for detecting people
The INESC TEC team also created a methodology for detecting people using an infrared camera, which can be integrated in sea and aerial vehicles. “The camera detects thermal radiation”, the researcher said, which is “similar to the technology commonly used in surveillance systems in buildings”, he adds.
The process of developing these technologies was supported by the Portuguese Navy, and the NATO Marine Research Centre. The devices developed by the different countries have been submitted to tests and are being integrated into a control computer system.
Some of the sub-systems developed as part of the ICARUS are likely to be marketed, but for this, after the project is concluded, it will be necessary for industrial partners to invest. “If two or three products have a commercial application that’s already a good result”, the INESC TEC researcher reveals.
The ICARUS is the result of a challenge launched within a European Union call, following the last major world disasters such as the tsunami in Thailand and the wreck of the Costa Concordia.
