h a l f b a k e r yNot so much a thought experiment as a single neuron misfire.
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Train a vision system to watch the perimeter of a cruise ship to detect someone falling overboard. Automatically deploy a drone with a life ring, dinghy or whatever to home in on the person in the water, then hover overhead to mark the location while the ship stops, turns round and comes to get them.
Might
be quite a big drone as it needs a decent payload and a couple of hours' endurance. Alternatively, go the whole hog and make it big enough to lower a bosun's chair and lift the unfortunate diver to safety.
Clearly has its limits; if you've fallen ten storeys and landed head-first then you might be beyond saving anyway. But at least your chances of survival if you withstand the impact would be much better.
MOBtronic
https://marss.com/products/mobtronic/
3 false positives per week [Voice, Nov 29 2025]
MOB systems
https://hackaday.co...vival-rates-at-sea/
[Voice, Nov 29 2025]
It's been considered apparently
https://www.busines...ard-congress-2023-8
[21 Quest, Dec 01 2025]
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I was hoping for a trebuchet |
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/I was hoping for a trebuchet/ [marked-for-tagline] |
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There's gotta be at least some system that they could use to sense somebody falling overboard right? [+] |
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Don't necessarily need the drone, just sound the alarm, get a rescue boat out there. Maybe have it manned with a two man rescue crew at all times or something so it just takes a minute to get into the water. |
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hmmm, daytime; 360 motion sensors at lowest deck level, night time; light sensors detect the sudden phosphorescence of a nearby splash. |
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It may help to give every passenger an alert module. It would activate only after an appropriate period of weightlessness followed by immersion in salt water. |
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That would work, would they wear them though? |
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Almost half of the people you've ever met are below average intelligence. |
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I think I heard that scienceticians have done studies showing that 90% of people on Earth are below the global average IQ. Or above, I forget which. Maybe both. |
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A couple of cameras / night vision cameras and an AI processing unit could be taught to recognise a falling object in a particular size range, accelerating at a predictable rate, in space that shouldn't normally have anything in it. Cruise ships are already festooned with cameras. |
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An alert module would help a lot but I wouldn't trust someone's drunk nan to be wearing one consistently, and I'd guess there's a correlation between level of impairedness and likelihood of an accident. |
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A manned rescue boat on permanent alert is I think expensive to man (two trained people per shift, times three shifts, is six salaries) and difficult to lower when the ship is doing 25 knots. It's absolutely invaluable for recovering the person, but a drone is a much cheaper and probably faster first responder that can be dispatched on a "maybe" without putting crew lives at risk. The lifeboat crew can then spend 95% of their time doing something else, and only activate when needed. |
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For the cameras, exactly. Having the videos profiled to tell the difference between a person falling and say a bird diving after a fish should be pretty easy. At some point if you get idiots throwing a chair overboard and it's close, the drone being dispatched just to make sure would make a lot of sense. |
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I'd say worth it just for selling the safety factor. |
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Might be easier to have a net around the outside of the ship, just below the lowest accessible level (or at more than one level, for taller ships). Could fold up or retract for docking etc.
How often do people fall off cruise ships anyway? |
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Now I am worried about what happens if someone accidentally falls off the edge of the net |
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As with most things, it seems it comes down to cost and enforcement. Companies just don't want to do it, there are technologies out there, but there's no international standard and no agency holding their feet to the fire to make them use it. |
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There was an episode I think in the Orson Wells (sp?) series, where a guy checks that an old lady sees perfectly and jumps overboard to delay the ship and win his life's bet. |
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The nurse walks over to her, she cannot see very well. The old lady points to the disappearing guy in the waves, pats her on the back and takes her back to her room. |
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And the titles come up with the music: TaDaaa Da. TaDaaa Da. |
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//studies showing that 90% of people on Earth are below the global average IQ. Or above// |
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I could see that being true, however I said above average, which levels all fields and can by definition only relate to the top half or lower half of a thing. |
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I'm not talking intelligence quotient.
I'm talking intelligence itself. |
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Well, my calculations might be off. I could try it again using math, averages, means, medians, modes, variances, etc. but that's boring math nerd stuff. |
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The kid who went o.b. onboard a cruise ship cause her grandfather put her on a rail beside an open spot in the window or somesuch a half a dozen years back was the niece of a school chum of mine. |
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Just looked that up. So sad. |
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