Since 2014, more than 1.765.000 people arrived in Europe by sea while running away from armed conflicts, pursuit and poverty. Unfortunately, the sea has taken away 15.486 human lives up to th e present day. Nowadays, the biggest flow of ships that cross the Mediterranean depart from the Libyan coast, aiming to arrive at the islands of Malta or Lampedusa, a journey that comprehends more than 300 kilometers and is practically impossible to undert ake in the conditions in which they travel, so they depart with the only hope of being rescued. This project proposes a new method of searching and detecting ships. It consists in the application of an unmanned aerial vehicle, known by the English acrony m UAV, popularly known as drone, equipped with a thermal camera to easily detect the ships at a long distance. The drone will work autonomously, and subsequently it will be able to perform search missions in which the pilot will need not take direct action , who will only have to monitor the flight and review the obtained data when an object is detected. Throughout this document we will discuss the capabilities and possibilities of the drone, we will specify its possible usage and missions that may perform , and we will detail the technical facets of this project and the software developed for the flight of the drone and for the processing and transmission of images captured all over its path