Design And Development Of An Autonomous Maritime Rescue Vehicle Using Point-To-Point Navigation Method

Abstract

Man Overboard (MOB) incidents require rapid rescue operations because delayed response significantly reduces the probability of victim survival. Conventional life buoys provide flotation assistance but cannot autonomously approach the victim, resulting in rescue operations that rely heavily on manual intervention by the ship's crew. This study aims to design and evaluate Varuna Buoy, an autonomous maritime rescue vehicle employing the Point-to-Point Navigation method to improve rescue response effectiveness. The proposed system integrates an ESP32 microcontroller, Neo-6M GPS receiver, HW127 digital compass, BTS7960 motor driver, modified bilge pump thrusters, and LoRa wireless communication module. Navigation is performed by combining Haversine distance estimation, azimuth bearing calculation, and differential thrust control to continuously minimize heading error while navigating toward predetermined target coordinates. The system was evaluated through ten autonomous navigation experiments conducted under two different initial heading scenarios at Ketintang Lake, Universitas Negeri Surabaya. Experimental results showed that the proposed system successfully navigated toward the target with final distances ranging from 1.27 m to 2.62 m, achieving a 70% navigation success rate based on a predefined stopping threshold of 2 m. Furthermore, the LoRa communication system achieved an average latency of 1.06 s, enabling reliable near real-time telemetry. These findings demonstrate that the proposed autonomous navigation system provides a practical and effective solution for maritime rescue applications and offers a promising foundation for future autonomous rescue vehicle development.