iLifebuoy - saving human lives without endangering the lives of savers

Project Information

iLifebuoy

Grant agreement ID: 855274

DOI

10.3030/855274

Project closed

EC signature date 20 February 2019

Start date 1 March 2019

End date 30 June 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

MARINE PV TECHNOLOGIES LTD
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - iLifebuoy (iLifebuoy - saving human lives without endangering the lives of savers)

Reporting period: 2019-03-01 to 2019-06-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Marine PV Technologies is a recently created spin-off company by the team behind the Multinational Educational Center UK (MEC) – a training and innovation think tank. The purpose of Marine PV, and its dedicated team, is to drive the development, market penetration and commercialisation of its flagship product – iLifebuoy.
The objective of our business project is to help save human lives by entering the aquatic lifesaving equipment market for lifebuoys. The recent growth of the shipping and leisure sailing (wider seafaring) industry has in turn increased the risks and number of Man Overboard (MOB) situations leading to drowning at sea and rivers. Expected product - ‘iLifebuoy’ is an autonomous robotized lifebuoy that eliminates the challenges associated with the traditional life saving devices. Like the St. Bernard dogs, iLifebuoy autonomously finds & reaches the person and provides them first support. The novelty - it is not a remote-controlled lifebuoy- it is a collaborative robot. iLifebuoy is a fully autonomous tracer, but it receives (video) input from a human. It uses three different built-in sensors (audio, video and sonar) to pin-point the location of MOB in water, then activates a powerful water jet propulsion to reach and provide support to the MOB within less than a minute! iLifebuoy further sends a MAYDAY signal to channel 16 and emits the GPS coordinates of the MOB. Marine PV Technologies was specifically spun off to develop and launch the iLifebuoy products. Its business strategy and team are structured to ensure the innovation’s successful market uptake. Our target groups are: A) watercrafts (incl. cruise ships, ferries, passenger ships, tourist boats, canal boats, yachts; B) coastal infrastructure open to the public (bars / restaurants located at a canal or right on the sea, pedestrian bridges). Our Primary market for product introduction will be A) watercrafts. Conservative estimates of the ‘addressable/obtainable market’ (only 6.3% of the total market) indicate potential demand for 1.3M units growing at a 5.7% YoY until 2024.
Based on very conservative assumptions for production and market penetration we expect to reach 2.03% of the ‘obtainable market’, create 87 new jobs and realise £27M of EBITDA by our 3rd year of trading. We project to break even after 1.5 years. The main objective of ‘iLifebuoy’ Phase 1 is to verify the technological, economic, legal and market viability of our innovation.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

1. Detailed review and selection of individual component parts to be used for building iLifebuoy:
2. Built and tested engineering prototypes 3 and 4 and continue product development
3. Performed analysis of the possible materials for manufacturing the components of A-rescue corpus
4. Executed an in-depth technical study and evaluation of the full scale capabilities of the different techonologies employed by iLifebuoy (e.g. acoustic profile detetion, noise recognition in different situations, study of the influence of the size and power Turbo jets to the time it takes to rescue the victim etc.)
5. Performed extensive testing of the prototypes
6. Identified an initial set of distributors and partners to test and promote our product
7. Developed product upgrade plans and product line extension – a long term view of the potential avenues to improve the iLifebuoy solution
8. Performed an in-depth evaluation of the market environment
a. Further research and segmentation of target customer needs
b. Built a methodology of research, assess and monitor market changes
c. Refined our market sizing approach, assumptions and projections of the expected market size in different geographies over a 5 year horizon
9. Built out our Marketing and Sales Strategy
10. Developed a detailed view of our market penetration approach for water-based vessels
11. Established a confident view of our To-Be Cost-structure including both production and total cost-to-serve
12. Developed Product Strategy and Tactics
13. Built a Place and distribution strategy
14. Established initial view on Pricing strategy and tactics:
15. Developed our Promotion plan - PR, advertising and sales, positioning statement
16. Defined our Production/Operating Requirements
17. Identified the most suitable places/locations where production will take place (manufacture, store and deliver its products)
18. Identified the most suitable premises that will be needed for the company business activity:
19. Selected specific materials for body of iLifebuoy
20. Developed initial production schedule
21. Performed a study and evaluation of alternatives for outsourcing some of the production activities
22. Defined Management and Personnel Requirements - For the implementation of the next step
23. Expanded our IPR management approach including an IPR audit and further patent submissions
24. Performed Risk analysis and Risk management plan
25. Developed concrete Financial Projections for Revenue, Growth & Investment and validated assumptions by dedicated research and testing
26. Projected the Necessary funds for Phase 2 (2020, 2021)
27. Projected Necessary funds for Phase 3 (2022, 2023, 2024)
28. Built out our Capital requirements & strategy for further fund raising
29. Defined a ‘start-up’ schedule and plan
30. Concluded the Feasibility Study that the idea is financially and economically feasible, beneficial to the business and society and made a decision to pursue it further

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The advantages over all competitors – iLifebuoy saves crucial time in a MOB situation since A) it does not require a qualified lifeguard to be around - the first person who identifies the MOB can directly deploy the iLifebuoy in the water; B) it effectively eliminates the need for lifeguards to enter the water and reach the person in distress. Additionally, iLifebuoy is more cost effective than any competing solutions and outperforms them on key user criteria (full competitive assessment included).
State of development – TLR6. We have successfully tested the fourth engineering prototype. An existing patent, an application with the World IP Organisation, and a robust IPR strategy protect our innovation and ensure its potential for commercialisation and freedom to operate.

iLifebuoy prototype