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by qchris
1927 days ago
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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/ |
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If they could do this for as cheap as $100,000 and 10% maintenance then it would sell out.
I think even with millions of dollars it wont work well enough to deploy.
Cost of just the cameras to detect drowning -
"The cost to install Poseidon will vary depending on the size, specifications and number of pools. The average cost to manufacture and install the system in a standard pool is between $150,000 – $350,000." - https://drowningprevention.com.au/#:~:text=Cost,pool%20facil....
Here's $6,000,000 for shark spotting using an easier tech -
https://www.zdnet.com/article/au8m-fleet-of-shark-spotting-d...
(A SMART drumline is a buoy that sends a sms when the hook gets pulled on - https://www.sharksmart.nsw.gov.au/technology-trials-and-rese...)