Lyon firefighters test an autonomous drone to respond to drowning incidents

To save a few precious minutes when a drowning is reported, firefighters in the Rhône department are testing an autonomous drone capable—thanks to onboard artificial intelligence—of tracking a person drifting in the Rhône River and providing rescue teams with a precise location to make their intervention more effective.

The drone takes off from the fire station in Lyon’s 3rd arrondissement and flies autonomously to the scene of the incident. Traditional drone rescue requires a firefighter to manually pilot the aircraft while a second operator watches a camera screen. The new autonomous systems being tested streamline this entirely to save what rescuers call the "Golden Minutes" of submersion. The drone utilizes a combination of standard high-definition cameras and advanced thermal imaging.