SARbot Robo-Sub Helps Rescue Drowning Victims in Minutes

From Popular Science - New Technology, Science News, The Future Now:

Things get very bad, very quickly for people in cold water. Just minutes after total submersion, heart and brain activity stop. But the cold also protects. If rescuers can reach a drowning victim in less than 90 minutes, it's possible to resuscitate, often with no long-term ill effects. Inspired by this fact, Duncan Winsbury, a former station manager at the Fire & Rescue Service in Derbyshire, England, set out to build a robot that could find and retrieve cold-water drowning victims fast. Winsbury explained his vision to Jesse Rodocker, the co-founder of Seattle robot-maker SeaBotix, and the duo made SARbot, upgrading a shoebox-size remotely operated sub typically used to salvage shipwrecks. The robot transmits sonar and video data to land via a cable. Rescuers then can use its arm to latch onto a victim and haul both him and the 'bot in like a lobster trap.

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