Life jacket based energy harvesting to assist search and rescue - a review

Water activities are common in New Zealand, both recreationally and commercially. The fourth most common cause of accidental death in New Zealand is drowning. One of the most common devices for preventing drowning is a life jacket, which keeps the wearer afloat in an accident, however, until rescue arrives the wearer is still at risk of drowning. Reducing the waiting time for search and rescue and extending the survival time for the victim in the water are two areas that can be improved. It is well known that Internet of Things (IoT) lifejackets can assist with this by providing more functionality, but little progress has been made on energy harvesting to support those functions. In this paper, a review on the potential and feasibility of using life jacket as a medium to harvest energy from the movement of humans during drowning events is presented. A review of life jacket design with IoT and energy source identification is included in the paper. Although the design of the harvesting devices for life jackets will differ from that of typical wearable devices because of the unpredictable ambient environment and safety consideration, a variety of common wearable energy harvesters are reviewed. There is potential for adjusting or scaling up these methods for life jackets. The methods for dynamic modelling of the drowning person's movement and deformation of the life jacket which can be the source of energy to be harvested necessary for the analysis and design of energy harvesting systems. The research gaps and questions are presented.