Coming soon, an Ooredoo-powered drone to save you from drowning!
Imagine being on a deserted beach in the country, and suddenly the urge to take a swim in the sea becomes very strong. Throwing caution to the winds, you jump into the sea.
However, the waves are quite rough and it’s a little while before you realize your mistake. But by then, you are deep out at sea and there is no help coming from anywhere?
Do not worry, for a life-saving drone project — developed by Qatari startup company n-GON and supported by Ooredoo — is going to help you out.
The service is hoping to revolutionise emergency and rescue operations, specifically near coastal areas, using state-of-the-art connectivity solutions from Ooredoo, reported Gulf Times.
The drone project, named ‘Ooredoo Rescue,’ utilises solar-powered buoys to alert a drone once it detects an emergency such as drowning incidents. Tech startup n-GON has proposed to deploy as much as 30 buoys around the country to assist the coast guard in monitoring marine activities.
The new technology, which is likely to be launched early next year, was showcased at the Ooredoo booth at the QITCOM 2017 exhibition.
The buoy, 5M in diameter, is equipped with infra-red sensors, cameras, and night vision cameras. Around 30 of them will be deployed around Qatar.
“The buoys will detect people in the water within their range, monitor the situation in real time and send a signal to the coastguard control centre to deploy the drone which will then bring the inflatable life raft to save a drowning person,” Amr Abdelhady, CEO of N-GON, told Qatar Tribune.
After deploying the life raft, the drone will return to the command control centre to get another life raft. It will then return and land on the buoy, which is equipped with a wireless charging station and a water turbine.
The new solution is expected to provide the life raft in the fastest time possible, to allow the person to hold on to the floatation device until human aid can reach them.
Ooredoo will provide the 4G Supernet network which will operate the drone as well as Wifi to the areas where the buoys will be located.
N-GON will work on the proof of concept with the MoI, which will identify the coastal areas where the buoys would be deployed.
Meanwhile, the project’s proposed Phase 2 is geared towards border patrol and anti-smuggling operations.
