project ryptide life saving drone accessory deploys inflatable ring
image courtesy of bill piedra

 

 

 

the ‘project ryptide’ developed by flying robots LLC and students from the king low heywood thomas school of stamford, is a life saving drone accessory that can carry an automatically-inflating life ring to a distressed swimmer in less than 30 seconds. the system is attachable to all miniature copter gadgets that are also capable of carrying a gopro camera and brushless gimbal devices –for example, the DJI phantom is functional to deploy the rescue accessory.

 


demonstration of the drone accessory saving a swimmer in distress, with the inflatable life ring
videos courtesy of bill piedra

 

 

 

weighing less than 420 grams, the ‘project ryptide’ connects to a drone easily within seconds, and its ring deployment is triggered via a RC transmitter. after several prototypes were developed including one that can carry and drop up to four life rings in one go, the accessory will be offered for sale through a kickstarter campaign in January 2015.

 


an early production test of a prototype model dropping the life-saving ring to a swimmer in an indoor pool