erson overboard (POB) accidents often occur at bad
weather conditions, such as strong winds, heavy seas, poor
visibility and low temperature. The operations of search
and rescue (SAR) at persons overboard incidents are
technically very complicated and cause a potential risk for
SAR teams. Often accidents have not been noted in time to
quickly respond by activating the chain of survival. A new,
autonomously acting, fully integrated rescue system is
under development to reduce fatal accidents at sea (Figure
1). A sensor integrated in the life-jacket sends a signal after
the person falls overboard. Once the signal is received,
the SAR station located on the parent ship releases the
automatically controlled rescue boat (RB), which advances
towards the POB. The position of the POB and RB
is transmitted via GALILEO satellite techniques to the
SAR station