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23 A ccording to the UN, 168 million people worldwide currently need humanitarian aid, a number it predicts will exceed 200 million by 2022. Delivery of aid is a growing application for UAV systems because there is always a significant proportion of those in need who are difficult or impossible to reach in time with emergency supplies by means other than aircraft. Furthermore, it is not always feasible to land large fixed-wing aircraft safely, while parachute drops are prone to wind drift, helicopters with sufficient payload and range are scarce, and manned aircraft are expensive. That creates a need for an automated UAV system that can carry a substantial quantity of supplies over a radius of up to 250 km, drop them accurately and safely, then return to reload, according to Barry Koperberg, founder and general manager of Dutch company Wings For Aid, developer of the MiniFreighter 8/500FW. “The aim is to create direct access to remote villages and settlements, safely and scalably,” he says. Rather than the system being for sale though, Wings For Aid plans to offer it as a paid-for service to governments via aid agencies and/or military organisations. The system includes a patented parachute-free delivery box that’s designed to be dropped into a controlled landing zone the size of a tennis court and a UAV that can carry eight of the boxes, and that can be operated in groups from a single GCS. Overall dimensions are limited by the need to fit a complete system with one aircraft into a single Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit (TEU) container. Wings For Aid has patented the payload delivery box, and holds the IP on the concept of the aircraft as a whole, the payload release mechanism and the cargo pod/fuselage. A year ago, Koperberg and his team set about developing such a system to the point where it could be demonstrated in flight within nine months. While the effects of the pandemic have stretched this timeline, the project has now essentially reached that point. He was in such a hurry, he explains, because he wanted to begin helping people as soon as possible. He emphasises that he felt it was important to take an incremental approach, learning from real operations in the field and applying new knowledge to later versions of the system. Partnership approach To develop a new UAV system in such a compressed timescale required working with partners from industry, academia, government r&d agencies and the Dutch armed forces. The UAV’s development has been funded through a combination of private investment and public grants. Koperberg explains that Wings For Aid has received both financial and in-kind support from the Dutch government and the European Union, industrial partners, r&d institutes and universities. He estimates that the total investment to take the project to a breakeven revenue model to be around e 20 million. He says the starting point for the concept was consultation with aid organisations to determine the size, loaded weight, composition and delivery mode of the ideal payload container. A key point that emerged was that the box must not be too big or too heavy for one person to carry it away from the drop zone, so a maximum weight of 20 kg was chosen, with a useable volume of 70 litres considered well-suited to aid packages – a Wings For Aid MiniFreighter 8/500FW | Dossier Developing this UAV system for delivering humanitarian aid required an eclectic private-public partnership. Peter Donaldson reports on the role each party played Unmanned Systems Technology | December/January 2021 The Pipistrel Sinus test aircraft was fitted with transparent pods to allow the workings of the box carriage and release mechanism to be seen and filmed in action to help reveal any problems (Courtesy of VanBerlo)