2026 Guangdong Maritime Comprehensive Search and Rescue Drill

The 2026 Guangdong Maritime Comprehensive Search and Rescue Emergency Drill was recently held at the Three Gorges Yangjiang Shapa Offshore Wind Farm. This was the first systematic comprehensive emergency drill conducted within an offshore wind farm in Guangdong Province, designed to test rapid response and coordinated emergency capabilities through realistic scenario training.

The drill site — the Three Gorges Yangjiang Shapa Offshore Wind Farm — is Three Gorges Corporation’s first offshore wind project in Yangjiang, located in the waters off Shapa Town, Yangxi County. With a total installed capacity of 2 million kilowatts, the facility comprises 315 offshore wind turbines, 4 offshore booster stations, and nearly 1,000 kilometers of submarine cables, supplying approximately 5.6 billion kilowatt-hours of clean energy annually to the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.

Sdison Equipment in Action

Sdison Technology COFDM wireless video transmission systems played a critical role in the drill’s communication infrastructure. Seven camera positions were deployed across the exercise area — positioned on vessels, UAVs, and shore-based command points — capturing the full scope of the sea-land-air joint operation. COFDM transmitters relayed high-definition video across distances of 10 to 15 kilometers back to the onshore command center, where incident commanders monitored all exercise phases in real time.

The transmission challenge was significant: multiple fast-moving platforms (helicopters, rescue vessels, UAVs), an electrically noisy offshore wind farm environment with 315 operating turbines, and long over-water signal paths with constant multipath reflections. Sdison’s COFDM modulation scheme — distributing the signal across hundreds of orthogonal sub-carriers — maintained robust, low-latency video links throughout all five drill scenarios.

Five Emergency Response Scenarios

The drill addressed the high-frequency safety risks of offshore wind operations in the typhoon-prone, complex sea conditions of western Guangdong. Five major exercise modules were conducted:

  • High-Altitude Casualty Rescue: Evacuation of injured personnel from wind turbine nacelle platforms via rescue baskets to crew transfer vessels
  • Platform Personnel Evacuation: Coordinated abandonment of offshore structures under emergency conditions
  • Person Overboard Search and Rescue: Helicopter, professional rescue vessel, and search UAV coordination in a three-dimensional sea-land-air rescue pattern
  • Vessel Loss of Control Response: Emergency towing, parallel search patterns, and sea-land transfer — with Three Gorges Corporation leading this module in full compliance with provincial offshore wind emergency search and rescue guidelines
  • Full-Area Communication Support: Establishing and maintaining unified communication links across all participating units, including maritime safety administration, coast guard, and maritime search and rescue center forces

Transmission Performance

Across all five drill modules, Sdison’s COFDM wireless video transmission systems maintained uninterrupted HD feeds from all seven camera positions. The system operated reliably in the electromagnetically complex offshore wind farm environment, demonstrating the NLOS resilience and multipath handling that COFDM technology is known for. Command staff at the shore-based operations center received synchronized video from airborne, surface, and shore perspectives simultaneously — a capability that proved essential for coordinating the multi-dimensional rescue response.

Conclusion

The successful deployment at the 2026 Guangdong Maritime Comprehensive Search and Rescue Drill validates Sdison COFDM wireless transmission systems for the most demanding maritime emergency scenarios. As offshore wind energy expands across China’s coastal waters, reliable long-range wireless video transmission will become an increasingly critical component of maritime safety infrastructure. Sdison Technology remains committed to delivering robust, field-proven transmission solutions that emergency responders depend on.