The Impact of Covid-19 on Human Rescue Operations: A Review on Past Unmanned - Water Rescue Boats (U-Wrb) and Adopting Them to The New Norm

Recently, the drowning cases of human beings are at an alarming rate. The current work presents a dedicated review on U-WRB for human rescue operations subjected to drowning. The review from year 1996 to 2018 highlights the key factors such as advantages and limitations of the developed U-WRB’s. Having completed the review, the work further proposes new research pathways that could be beneficial to the scientific community living in the new norm; COVID-19 where minimal contact between humans are of concern when it comes to human rescue operations. Possible new research pathways include but not limited to the type of sensors used, material selection, incorporation of state-of-the-art attachments to the U-WRB and customizable attachments to the main unit based on a given real time rescue operation are proposed.