Every year thousands of fishermen/people die in sea because either they are lost or stuck in the middle of nowhere after hitting a sea storm.

The idea is to have multiple floating drums in sea, communicating with each other and helping lost/stuck people. The drums will have electronic circuits (transmitters and receivers) to send and receive wireless signals from other floating drum circuits. Each drum will have a waterproof keypad to type a message and send to the coast or nearby ships. Every drum will try to communicate with nearest drums in all directions (like a web) and will take the shortest path to the coast.

Each drum will have small GPS sensor installed which will tell the exact geographic location of the lost or needy person who is sending the message. In addition it will also display it’s co-ordinates on the LCD attached on the drum. Any lost person can find out his location and can start heading back to the coast if he wants. Every drum will also act as weather station for sailors. If the weather is bad the drum for that particular geo-graphic location will start beeping and give out light signals. One can read the weather information on drum LCD by pressing a button.

Power Source
The electronic circuits will be charged using solar cells and a power scavenging system which would harness power from vibrational energy of sea waves. The power scavenged from these sources will charge the onboard battery which will run the main circuit.

The mechanical design of drum is such that it allows the drum to flip along two axis (degree of freedom can be increased) which in-turn helps the drum to bear pressure of waves and increase vibrations in inner coils, thus producing more power.

Additional Features

1.In idle state, the circuit will turn ‘ON’ after every 10 min to send/receive a message.
2.Sender will have to switch ON the circuit manually to check the co-ordinates, send message or to check the weather forecast.
3.All the drums will communicate with each other on regular basis after every 10 min and will send their co-ordinates to the main station on the coast. Co-ordinates can be mapped using GIS software. The weather forecast will be sent from the station to the drums at different geographical locations.
4.Drums will communicate any diagnostics data whenever asked by the main station. By doing this the station will come to know which drum is malfunctioning and needs maintenance.
5.Every drum will have white light blinking for 0.2 sec at an interval of 5 sec as a signal and will turn red, when somebody is trying to get help

Failure Mode
If due to any failure mode, message cannot be received at coast or the station does not confirm that the message is received, the drum will start sending a message to all surrounding drums to turn ‘ON’ their red lights. This will act as signal to other observers that somebody needs help at particular location.