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12 Wanting to widen the window of opportunity for safe rescues in rough seas, Chinese inventors Feng Zhigen, Liu Lin and Lin Yuxi from the Tianhai Fusion Defense Equipment Technology company have applied for a patent for an unmanned rescue boat (writes Peter Donaldson). Patent application number CN108569383A refers to a remotely operated, self-righting lifeboat with image acquisition, data transmission, trajectory planning systems, and a means of deploying and retrieving rescue baskets and ropes to bring survivors aboard. It also includes some basic life support equipment. Illustrations show a waterjet-powered rigid hull inflatable boat with places for two survivors on the foredeck. Each rescue basket includes a base on the deck to which a pivoting telescopic link that supports the basket is attached. This remotely operated device lowers the basket into the water near a survivor, into which they climb before being brought aboard. The second type of rescue device is a pair of remotely operated rope-throwers, each of which consists of another telescopic arm housed in a tub that also contains the rope. The tub has a pair of handles for the survivor to grab and hold onto while the winch pulls them in. 3D printing specialist 3DDC has announced a second metal printing machine for high-quality aerospace and automotive prototype designs (writes Nick Flaherty). The Renishaw AM250 uses a laser The life support equipment includes warm clothing, oxygen bottles and masks. The boat itself has a self-righting sintering process with a powder bed of 250 x 250 x 300 mm to produce larger parts than are possible with the company’s current ProX 200 from 3D Systems. The machine uses a wiper blade to re-apply each layer of metal powder – system consisting of a large float on a tower at the stern, while the imaging and data transmission systems are mounted on masts on the bow. 3DDC is using M300 maraging steel powder – rather than a roller, so the surface finish isn’t quite as good but it allows larger parts to be built. Also, this method can take longer to produce a component, with the largest parts taking up to 120 hours to build. USV system to the rescue Growth in metal printing Surface vessels Manufacturing December/January 2019 | Unmanned Systems Technology The USV is equipped with a rescue basket system (300) and includes an image acquisition system (100) and data link antenna (200)