AquaScan Sonar-based Drowning Detection System

Overview

AquaScan is a privacy-preserving pool monitoring system that uses scanning sonars instead of cameras. It fuses multiple SonarBox nodes to cover large pools and reduce blind spots. AI models analyze sonar images to recognize swimmer activities and detect drowning in real time, providing alerts and localization for lifeguards.

  • AquaScan Sonar-based Drowning Detection System
Technical name of innovation
Underwater Multi-Sonar System for Pool Monitoring and Drowning Detection
Research completion
2025
Commercialisation opportunities
Licensing or joint productization for pool operators, property managers, and safety tech providers; partnerships for local and overseas deployment.
Problem addressed

Camera-based pool monitoring raises privacy concerns and struggles with occlusion and low visibility underwater. Manual lifeguarding can miss early signs of distress. AquaScan provides automated, privacy-safe sensing to detect drowning and unauthorized pool use in real time.

Innovation
  • SonarBox: extendable underwater sensing node supporting wired or optical wireless communication for pools.
  • Multi-sonar coordination and fusion to expand coverage and resolve blocking/occlusion.
  • AI pipeline with sonar image reconstruction and activity recognition for drowning detection on edge devices.
Key impact
  • Privacy-preserving monitoring without cameras.
  • Works in turbid water and low-light conditions.
  • Real-time alerts with localization to assist lifeguards.
  • Field validated in multiple public pools with high recognition accuracy (~91%).
Award
  • Best Paper Award, ACM MobiCom 2025.(1/588 submissions, Top 0.17%)
  • Gold Medal, 50th Geneva International Invention Exhibition.
Application
  • Public swimming pool drowning detection and safety monitoring.
  • After-hours pool intrusion detection and alerting.
  • Large pool/clubhouse management for lifeguard support.

Patent

  • US non-provisional patent application No. 19/427,128 (filed 19 Dec 2025), claiming priority 63/745,124 (filed 14 Jan 2025).
The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)

Founded in 1963, The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) is a forward-looking comprehensive research university with a global vision and a mission to combine tradition with modernity, and to bring together China and the West. CUHK teachers and students hail from all around the world. Four Nobel laureates are associated with the university, and it is the only tertiary institution in Hong Kong with recipients of the Nobel Prize, Turing Award, Fields Medal and Veblen Prize sitting as faculty in residence. CUHK graduates are connected worldwide through an extensive alumni network. CUHK undertakes a wide range of research programmes in many subject areas, and strives to provide scope for all academic staff to undertake consultancy and collaborative projects with industry. 

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