Study into the Development of a Light Weight Smart Life Buoy Prototype (LWSLB)

Life Buoy, also known as a life preserver, is a crucial safety tool on board any marine ships. The most common and conventional lifesaver is operated manually to save people from drowning, yet this method poses a risk for both the victim and rescuer. Hence, with the help of current technology, a smart lifebuoy has been developed, whereby the rescuer just operates the lifebuoy using remote control. Yet, the existing smart life buoy system has been found heavy and hard to be operated, especially for women, children, and other people with disabilities.This paper focuses on the development of a lightweight smart life buoy system and its characteristics.  Arduino Uno R3, Arduino Nano, DC motor 775, Transmitter and Receiver kit were the main components used in the development of the lightweight smart life buoy system (LWSLB). The developed LWSLB system was tested at the National Defence University of Malaysia’ swimming pool due to Covid-19 lockdown, and data such as speed, range of remote connection and battery endurance were obtained. It has been found out that the developed LWSLB weighs just 3.5kg overall compared to Brand S which weighs 13.75kg. However, in terms of speed, Brand S proves to be faster at 4.17m/s compared to LWSLB which exhibits a speed of 1.25m/s.