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46 Insight | Emergency services Medical supplies We featured the successful use of UAVs for rapid aerial deliveries of emergency blood supplies to hospitals in UST 21 (August/September 2018). Such work is now being advanced in the US by MissionGO, which has set the distance record for delivering an organ by UAV. “The record was actually set as part of two test flights in Nevada last September,” says Ryan Henderson, lead pilot at MissionGO. “The Nevada Donor Network, an organ procurement organisation, have been our main support partner in being able to showcase what we do in a valid test environment.” The first flight carried research corneas from Southern Hills Hospital and Medical Center to San Martín Hospital, both in the urban area of Las Vegas. The second flight – the one that set the distance record – delivered a kidney, also to be used for research, from an airport to the outside of a small town in the Las Vegas desert, a distance of over 10 miles in a little under 30 minutes. In addition to the time sensitivity of delivering life-saving organs, the biological nature of such payloads mean that thermal and vibration issues are far more critical than, say, EO/IR gimbals or couriered packages. “For every minute the organ is out of its donor and not yet in its recipient it is ‘dying’, and the recipient is losing years off their lifespan, so a fast UAV is essential,” Henderson notes. “But it also has to be able to handle the organ carefully from launch to landing. “Our entire system is designed around that need. For example, we chose an all-electric UAV over a gas-powered one for smoother power generation, and specifically a helicopter with redundant gears, transmissions, ESCs and batteries, so it can keep on flying if a powertrain component fails. “We’ve also built in proprietary vibration-damping systems. Since this is such a new field, no anti-vibration solution has been tailored for it before.” The UAV itself was built and supplied by Velos Rotors, in Greece. A customised version of its flagship Velos UAV, it also has four servos for controlling roll, pitch and yaw (compared with the typical three) so that if one fails, the fourth acts as a back-up to enable continued flight. Henderson adds, “Its autopilot can also initiate autorotation to a predetermined rally point, to land as safely as possible if needed. And Velos has installed a ballistic parachute from Galaxy Chutes, which only needs 15 ft of altitude to deploy and ensure a safe touchdown for craft and cargo.” The payload container has been designed around preventing vibrations from reaching the organ inside, while incorporating medical-grade thermal containment including insulation to protect the ice packs that will be wrapped around the organ. MissionGO plans to test the container further over increasingly long distances to see how its structural and thermal integrity cope with greater endurances. “We have several dozen other organ procurement organisations across the country that we’re preparing to work with, to show that UAS organ transport is feasible, reliable and repeatable,” Henderson says. Meanwhile, across the Pacific, NARMA in South Korea is continuing development of its AF-100 GS (Golfer Saver). This VTOL-transition UAV is being designed for quick transportation of small defibrillators to patients in locations where roads and ambulances cannot reach them – for example, its initial launch is focused on golf courses – and where paramedics could be hindered from reaching them and bringing life- saving heavy medical equipment. The AF-100 team is working on a project to trial the UAV in an outdoor park on the roof of a public institution in Daejeon Metropolitan City. In addition, it is to be installed at the outdoor golf course near NARMA’s base in Daejeon for testing in the near future. In such situations, a simple-use AED (Automated External Defibrillator) weighing from 900 g to 3 kg can be delivered by the AF-100 GS, which can fly at up to 120 kph, over a total operating distance of 10 km and with an endurance of 30 minutes. “If a person has a cardiac arrest at December/January 2021 | Unmanned Systems Technology NARMA is preparing to trial its AF-100 GS tiltrotor for quick transportation of defibrillators in Daejeon, South Korea (Courtesy of NARMA)