Typhoon proof medical transport airframe.
Hello everybody. I'm a french bloke living in japan indirectly involved in medical/healthcare.
The country as you might know go throught some regular violent weather and common sense is in quite short supply. For example... blood banks are sometimes far from hospitals.
During last typhoon there was a huge need for blood for a patient hemorraging badly. The blood took 6 hours to make a 30 minute trip.
Are there some RC airframe that could more or less operate during heavy storms ? The need is to be able to carry few blood bags and necessary coolant.
The airframe don't need to be reusable, crash landing would be ok as long as the cargo can be protected enough. Short takeoff/jato/catapult would be good.
I was thinking aboot:
a more ballistic flight than fro usual UAV as subtlelty don't work well during storms.
a swarm approach to be mandatory (launch 5 recover 1 or 2).
final homing signal would be provided by the site expecting the delivery but coverage can't be expected since takeoff, area around the hospital is dead flat but blood bank is in more mountainous place.
On the bright side, airspace is totally empty during expected use time. Since if it was possible to fly anything with humans inside, an helicopter would be dispatched instead.
Thanks for any suggestion/idea/or else.
The country as you might know go throught some regular violent weather and common sense is in quite short supply. For example... blood banks are sometimes far from hospitals.
During last typhoon there was a huge need for blood for a patient hemorraging badly. The blood took 6 hours to make a 30 minute trip.
Are there some RC airframe that could more or less operate during heavy storms ? The need is to be able to carry few blood bags and necessary coolant.
The airframe don't need to be reusable, crash landing would be ok as long as the cargo can be protected enough. Short takeoff/jato/catapult would be good.
I was thinking aboot:
a more ballistic flight than fro usual UAV as subtlelty don't work well during storms.
a swarm approach to be mandatory (launch 5 recover 1 or 2).
final homing signal would be provided by the site expecting the delivery but coverage can't be expected since takeoff, area around the hospital is dead flat but blood bank is in more mountainous place.
On the bright side, airspace is totally empty during expected use time. Since if it was possible to fly anything with humans inside, an helicopter would be dispatched instead.
Thanks for any suggestion/idea/or else.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Krzysztof Bosak on -
Aerosonde UAV?
Otherwise it calls for serious public research, not RC guerilla tactics.
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Permalink Reply by Gaspard de Coligny on -
Serious bribery yes (*)... serious public research, not so much...
there is nothing really new involved. For me the 2 biggest worries are airframe survivability and possible cargo load.
RC helos are already often used for rice paddies chemical treatment/fertilizing. There is really nothing too original, crazy or unbelievable... There is just a need, that don't happen often, but when you need it it could save lives. There is not much money to make out of it as of now. Unless it become a more common way of delivering small items that need extra quick dispatch (remote hospitals/clinics can also benefit from this).
(*) The amount of corruption here would make a banana dictatorship policeman blush.
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Permalink Reply by UAV Pilot on -
There is a company that is creating UAV's for hurricane research. They are Turbine powered and extremely fast. They are of course made for over the ocean so I am not sure of recovery. A turbine over land would be extremely risky and a crash landing with one of these is generally a flaming catastrophe. For airframe I would personally go with a carbon/ Kevlar composite. Bullet proof literally.
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Permalink Reply by Criss French on
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Hmmm. Thinking fast fast fast, maybe with parachute landing? Some ideas from a total newcomer to the sport:
- there must be designs that can fly 200+ km/hr on gas engines. Big engine with fast prop.
- high speed takeoff boost by model rocket engines from a short launch rail?
- GPS guidance, IMU / gyro stabilized to cope with wind turbulence.
- flight need not be pretty or very stable, just consistently towards target.
- plane could fly upwind past the target, deploy a small recovery parachute, cut engine, drop onto target.
- GPS speed vs. measured air speed would tell the wind speed.
- carefully calculate total weight vs. parachute descent rate vs. altitude vs. wind speed & direction
- deploy small parachute and cut engine when sudden drop in airspeed is detected.
- open source autopilot should be able to do those calculations easily with small amount of custom code.
- only one waypoint to store.
- some way to release parachute (and wings?) when plane hits the ground would prevent it from chasing off in the wind.
Another possible landing idea assuming very high wind speeds: fly just about to the target, descend, slow down, attempt to stall as close to ground as possible. Flying into wind should give very low speed over ground. In winds above stall speed, vertical descent is possible by matching wind speed.
Also, think soft storage. A tough waterproof kayak storage bag (top wraps up and closes), with light fluffy padding (air filled plastic packing bags?). Only risk I can imagine is impact trauma causing blood clotting. As long as the package is tough and padded, it's a liquid in plastic bags that you're trying to move, so breaking is less the issue than puncturing. Cloth can be very tough for its weight.
SPAD construction of wings and tail feathers would be cheap to replace, as are propellers. 3M brand VHB double sided tape (very high bond) can make for amazingly easy and quick wing building.
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Permalink Reply by Wendi Smol on -
Hi Gaspard
you did not mention the most important point of spec. : how far is the "normal" range? You say above "A 30 minutes trip takes 6 hours"; at what speed would it take 30 minutes?
What would be the "normal" load? I think we all know those blood pouches but I have no idea how much they weigh.
Come on, let's have some useful info.
All the best and greet me the geishas.
W.
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Permalink Reply by Gaspard de Coligny on
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For the range, at first between 50 and 80km would be minimum. (that would be in a storm).
The 30 minutes trip was from city gates to city gates, on higway speed limit 100km/h. So that would make around 50km at speed plus ingress/egress accounting for around 20 km more.
The payload would depend on the method. If we go swarm-like. 2 pouches of 1 liter plus maybe around 2 liters of coolant. 4 kg top.
In japan each prefecture (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prefectures_of_Japan) have 1 bloodbank. For Aichi it's lost in the woods in the city of Seto, which is a nice place -if you like tranquility- which might even have indoor plumbing, but I never went to check by myself...
Before we go to the -crowded japan- stuff. Yeah big cities are packed. But taking a wrong turn put you really fast in places that would remind you of deliverance. The northern Island -huge and totally flat- have mostly a population of cows with few humans inbetween. So flying UAV over big cities might be a concern in a storm. But here it's near no mans land and there's already trucks and houses flying in every directions.
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