Like medical ultrasound — invisible to the eye, yet detecting every movement in the water. SwimNet's AI sonar technology delivers accurate, privacy-preserving drowning detection for pools of all sizes.
In Hong Kong, analysis of drowning incidents reveals a disturbing truth — the system we rely on is not enough.
Most drownings happen silently below the surface — invisible to cameras, and invisible to the human eye. SwimNet's sonar is the only technology that sees what happens underwater.
Every recorded drowning incident in Hong Kong happened with a lifeguard on duty. Having a lifeguard present is not enough — the right technology is.
62.5% of drowning deaths in Hong Kong happen in private pools — clubhouses, hotels, and residential estates — where safety systems are weakest.
Every alternative leaves critical gaps. SwimNet is the only system designed specifically for underwater detection, privacy protection, and continuous 24/7 coverage.
Drowning prevention and swim safety are operational requirements for any hotel, resort, clubhouse or housing estate that operates a swimming pool. The questions below explain how sonar-based AI drowning detection works, and what property and facility managers worldwide should evaluate before choosing a system.
AIqua Corporation Limited is a Hong Kong deep-tech company, founded in 2022 and incubated at Hong Kong Science & Technology Park (HKSTP), that builds sonar-based AI drowning detection systems for swimming pools. Its flagship product, SwimNet, uses multi-sonar AI fusion — not cameras — to detect swimmers in distress with 99.9% accuracy and alert within 5 seconds, without capturing any video or personal data.
Leadership: Acoustic AI research is led by Prof. Xing Guoliang (CUHK, Chief AI Scientist), Prof. Sun Yanni (CUHK, deep learning), and Prof. Yan Zhenyu (CityU, sonar array design). Business operations are led by Norman Chan and Larry Ho.
Published research: The team's paper "AquaScan" won the Best Paper Award at ACM MobiCom 2025 — the first Hong Kong university to win in the conference's 31-year history. An earlier paper was presented at IPSN 2022. Full citations on the Advanced R&D page.
Our ESG commitments, industry recognition, and the ecosystem of partners that power our mission.
Our work is powered by world-class partners across academia, telecommunications, and innovation infrastructure.
AIqua's technology directly contributes to three United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Our SDG certification is currently in progress.
Our AI pipeline is purpose-built for aquatic safety — trained on more than 40,000 real pool acoustic data points collected across diverse pool environments and conditions.
AIqua's technology is grounded in peer-reviewed academic research, developed in collaboration with CUHK and CityU.
The team's landmark paper, winning the Best Paper Award at ACM MobiCom 2025 — the first Hong Kong university to win in the conference's 31-year history. The paper presents SwimNet's core acoustic AI architecture for real-time drowning detection.
View on ACM Digital Library ↗An early demonstration of the underwater acoustic sensing system, presented at the ACM/IEEE International Conference on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN 2022) in Milan — establishing the foundational research direction for SwimNet.
AIqua offers a complementary pair of AI safety systems that work independently or together to give your facility complete 360° aquatic safety coverage.
| Feature | SwimNet | CCTV | Wearables |
|---|---|---|---|
| Underwater detection | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
| Works in darkness / turbid water | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| No personal data captured | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
| No wearable required | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Alert response < 5 seconds | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
SwimNet replaces the camera with sound. A poolside array of ultrasonic transducers sweeps the entire water volume many times per second, building a live three-dimensional picture of where every swimmer is and how they are moving — from 0.3 m below the surface down to 3 m.
Because the system listens rather than looks, nothing that defeats a camera defeats SwimNet: darkness, surface glare, shadow, reflection and turbid water all leave the acoustic picture intact. The AI model runs on the edge processor at the poolside, so detection never depends on a cloud link.
AIqua's progressive alert ladder gives lifeguards precious reaction time. Each level is logged, timestamped, and streamed to the dashboard in real time.
The lifeguard's tablet quietly lights up yellow, marking the specific pool zone to watch. No alarm sound — an early heads-up to pay closer attention.
An audible beep sounds. The dashboard zone turns orange — the lifeguard moves to that end of the pool and prepares to enter the water.
A continuous alarm sounds and the dashboard flashes red, showing the exact incident location. The lifeguard enters the water immediately. Every moment is automatically logged.
SwimNet sensors are installed at the poolside and connected to the central processing unit. Our engineering team handles the full installation — from site survey to commissioning — with minimal operational downtime.
After an incident is detected, your facility manager can query that day's alert records and safety reports directly via WhatsApp — no login, no software to learn. Everything is logged automatically and retrievable on demand.
What is SPB-300? An add-on AI box that connects to your existing CCTV cameras — upgrading ordinary cameras into an intelligent poolside safety system, without replacing any hardware.
While SwimNet guards the water, the Smart Patrol Box (SPB-300) watches over the pool deck and surrounding areas. It uses existing IP cameras — ONVIF and RTSP compatible — to detect above-water incidents: slips and falls, fights, intrusions, and unauthorised access.
Together, SwimNet and SPB-300 provide complete 360° coverage of your aquatic facility — from the bottom of the pool to the changing room corridor.
SPB-300 uses the identical three-tier alert structure as SwimNet — giving staff a single, consistent protocol for all incident types.
SPB-300 is designed for easy integration into existing facility infrastructure.
AIqua SwimNet 即時識別溺水危機,在渾濁水質、黑暗環境及擁擠泳池中同樣有效。
當有人陷入危險,以下是系統即時發生的事。
數據清楚說明:有救生員在場,仍然不夠。
大多數溺水在水面以下悄悄發生——攝像鏡頭看不見,救生員肉眼也看不見。SwimNet的聲納是唯一能偵測水下情況的技術。
香港每一宗有記錄的溺水事故,都發生在有救生員當值的泳池。有人在場,不等於有保障——正確的技術才是關鍵。
62.5% 溺水死亡發生在私人泳池——會所、酒店、住宅屋苑。這些地方的安全配備往往最為薄弱,正是AIqua最能發揮作用的地方。
每一種替代方案都存在關鍵缺口。SwimNet是唯一專為水下偵測、私隱保護及全天候覆蓋而設計的系統。
對任何設有泳池的飯店、度假村、會所或屋苑而言,溺水預防與游泳安全都是必須處理的營運課題。以下問答說明聲納式 AI 溺水偵測的運作原理,以及全球物業及設施管理者在選擇系統前應評估的重點。
AIqua Corporation Limited 是一家香港深科技公司,成立於 2022 年,並在香港科學園(HKSTP)接受孵化,專注開發以聲納為基礎的 AI 溺水偵測系統。旗艦產品 SwimNet 採用多重聲納 AI 融合技術——而非攝影機——以 99.9% 的準確率偵測陷入危險的游泳者,並在 5 秒內發出警報,同時不擷取任何影像或個人資料。
研發領導:聲學 AI 研究由邢國良教授(中大,首席 AI 科學家)、孫燕妮教授(中大,深度學習)及甄鎮宇教授(城大,聲納陣列設計)帶領。業務營運由陳諾文及何梓聰負責。
學術驗證:團隊論文「AquaScan」榮獲 ACM MobiCom 2025 最佳論文獎——該會議 31 年歷史上首個香港大學得獎團隊。更早期論文亦於 IPSN 2022(米蘭)發表。完整引用可參閱先進研發頁面。
我們的ESG承諾、業界認可,以及支持AIqua使命的夥伴生態系統。
我們的工作由學術界、電訊業及創新基礎設施領域的世界級夥伴共同支持。
AIqua的技術直接貢獻於三項聯合國可持續發展目標。SDG認證申請正在進行中。
我們的AI偵測流程專為水上安全而建立——以真實泳池環境採集的超過40,000個聲波數據點訓練模型,覆蓋多種場景及條件。
AIqua 的技術建立於同行評審的學術研究之上,由中文大學及城市大學合作開發。
團隊的重要論文,榮獲 ACM MobiCom 2025 最佳論文獎——該會議 31 年歷史上首次由香港大學團隊獲獎。論文詳述 SwimNet 的核心聲學 AI 架構,用於實時溺水偵測。
在 ACM 數字圖書館查閱 ↗水下聲學感應系統的早期展示論文,於 ACM/IEEE 感測器網絡信息處理國際會議(IPSN 2022,米蘭)發表,奠定 SwimNet 的核心研究方向。
AIqua提供兩款互補的AI安全系統,可獨立運作或協同配合,為你的設施提供全方位水上安全覆蓋。
| 功能 | SwimNet | 閉路電視 | 穿戴裝置 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 水下偵測 | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
| 黑暗/渾濁水質可用 | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| 不捕獲個人資料 | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
| 無需穿戴裝置 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| 警報響應<5秒 | ✓ | ✗ | ~ |
SwimNet 以聲音取代影像。池畔的超聲波換能器陣列每秒多次掃描整個水體,即時建構三維圖像,掌握每位泳客的位置與動作模式——覆蓋水面以下 0.3 米至 3 米。
由於系統靠「聽」而非「看」,凡是令攝影機失效的條件都不影響 SwimNet:黑暗、水面反光、陰影、倒影與混濁水質都不會破壞聲學圖像。AI 模型在池畔的邊緣處理器上運行,偵測完全不依賴雲端連線。
AIqua的漸進式警報梯級為救生員爭取寶貴反應時間。每一級別均被記錄、加上時間戳記,並實時串流至儀表板。
救生員的平板電腦靜靜亮起黃色標示,指示需要留意的泳池區域。暫無警報聲——這是提醒救生員提高警覺的早期提示。
儀表板發出提示聲,警示區域轉為橙色——救生員走近該端,隨時準備入水。
持續警報聲響起,儀表板閃爍紅色並顯示事發確切位置——救生員立即入水施救。每一個時間節點均自動記錄,完整可查。
SwimNet傳感器安裝於泳池旁並連接至中央處理裝置。我們的工程團隊負責全程安裝——從場地勘察到系統調試——將運營停頓時間降至最低。
事故發生後,管理人員可透過WhatsApp直接查詢當天警報記錄及安全報告,無需登入電腦,無需學習新系統。所有記錄均自動儲存,隨時可查。
SPB-300是什麼? 一個外置式AI盒,接駁泳池現有的閉路電視,用於協助監測泳池池邊位置,令普通攝像機升級為智能安全系統——無需更換任何硬件。
SwimNet守護水下,智能巡邏箱(SPB-300)則監控泳池池邊及周邊區域。它利用現有IP攝像機——支援ONVIF及RTSP協議——偵測水面以上的事故:滑倒、打鬥、入侵及未經授權進入等。
SwimNet與SPB-300協同運作,為你的水上設施提供從泳池底部至更衣室走廊的全方位覆蓋。
SPB-300採用與SwimNet完全相同的三級警報結構——讓工作人員對所有事故類型採用統一、一致的應對程序。
SPB-300設計易於整合至現有設施。
We are looking for a motivated AIoT Engineering Intern to support our engineering team in building and enhancing AI-driven IoT systems. This role focuses on hardware development and field deployment — ideal for students or recent graduates passionate about hands-on hardware innovation.
我們正在尋找積極主動的 AIoT 工程實習生,協助工程團隊建構及優化 AI 驅動的物聯網系統。此職位專注於硬件開發及現場部署,非常適合熱衷實作硬件創新的學生或應屆畢業生。