An inexpensive unmanned aquatic vehicle for underwater human detection

This paper discusses the designing, implementation and testing of an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) robot, which travels underwater to detect possible human presence. This robot is expected to be extremely useful in human rescue operations during water accidents. The AUV is deployed above the water surface, near to the approximate target location and it swims underwater, checking for the target (human body), in real time. Once the target is detected, the AUV locks the targets position and move towards the target to verify and make a decision: whether it is a human body or not. After the confirmation, the robot swims back vertically up to the water surface, from where it can be easily noticed by the ground rescue crew. The diver can then dive there, to find the human body. Alternately, an air bag could also be inflated after locking it to the target, which will float back to the surface carrying the target. This technology is very helpful for underwater human detection since we need not have to search the whole water body and hence both time and resources are saved.