[HN Gopher] Developing an underwater robot to save people from d...
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       Developing an underwater robot to save people from drowning
        
       Author : mayiplease
       Score  : 7 points
       Date   : 2021-03-08 20:15 UTC (2 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.fraunhofer.de)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.fraunhofer.de)
        
       | qchris wrote:
       | I think this kind of a system is extremely unlikely to be applied
       | in practice, at least in the United States--it's just too costly.
       | You can reasonably train a 16-year-old to be a lifeguard in less
       | than 30 hours[0].
       | 
       | Meanwhile, even the most basic of prosumer ROVs (remotely-
       | operated underwater vehicles) like the BlueROV2 costs almost
       | $3000[1], that that's without including the fancy computer vision
       | tech and/or acoustics features that they're describing in here,
       | which probably won't even be able to take advantage of the
       | economies of scale for spare parts like thrusters, etc. That
       | doesn't take into account the eventual maintenance costs,
       | replacement, etc.
       | 
       | There's some places where marine robotics offer benefits for
       | replacing humans--deep sea diving, oil rigs, etc. But that only
       | works because the cost of training and employing humans is so
       | much higher, there's support equipment costs anyway, and the risk
       | involved warrants it. I don't see any of those factors here
       | making this likely.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.redcross.org/take-a-
       | class/lifeguarding/lifeguard...
       | 
       | [1] https://bluerobotics.com/store/rov/bluerov2/
        
       | jmercouris wrote:
       | If it is using computer vision to detect a drowning person, why
       | not just signal an alarm so people can help?
        
         | danielfoster wrote:
         | This is also a good idea. People might not always know what to
         | do or be able to reach the person, but it couldn't hurt.
        
           | mrec wrote:
           | People who don't know what to do are in danger of being
           | dragged under by the drownee.
        
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       (page generated 2021-03-08 23:02 UTC)