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Commercial drone deliveries could also benefit from the projects, which both involve Cranfield University in Bedfordshire.
Various projects have started delivering medical supplies by drone since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the sector is so far unstandardised and unsuitable for areas with large populations – two things the new research projects could change.
There are over 2.5m movements of medical supplies, samples and other items between hospitals and medical centres every year, with the majority of deliveries handled by couriers on the road.
Cranfield said the new projects, funded by Innovate UK, will “seek to facilitate the movement of medical items and speed up deliveries, while also alleviating strain on congested roads and reducing emissions”.
A project led by Skyfarer will aim to create a flight testing corridor – subject to Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) approval – in Warwickshire, making history by providing the UK’s first drone-based medical deliveries in a populated suburban environment within unsegregated airspace.
A second project, working with hospitals and NHS trusts directly, will create the first set of standard operational procedures for routine, drone-enabled delivery operations, and demonstrate automatic take-off, remote piloting and precision drone landing by hospital staff using the procedures.
“Autonomous drones are the ideal solution for efficiently delivering essential goods in compliance with social distancing regulations, since they don’t require a person to operate them or rely on traditional road-based infrastructure,” said professor Antonios Tsourdos, head of the Autonomous and Cyber-Physical Systems Centre at Cranfield.
“We are delighted to be involved in these projects which could significantly improve point-to-point movement of critical medical supplies and allow hospitals to get the right product at the right time, quickly and efficiently, while limiting staff exposure to health risk and avoiding cross-contamination.”
Elliot Parnham, CEO and founder of Skyfarer, said: “The Skyfarer project will move the adoption of drone solutions for logistics in the UK one step closer to reality. Heralding a new age of aerospace innovation, setting up this flight testing corridor will enable the testing of autonomous beyond visual line of sight drone technology in a suburban setting, providing a sustainable blueprint for gaining CAA approval and paving the way for commercial deliveries by drones to begin in the UK.”
The Skyfarer project will focus on validating the reliability and redundancy of the technology and creating a ‘concept of operations’ to work towards an application for the creation of the drone flight corridor.
Regulations currently require unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to be operated within visual line of sight of the remote pilot at all times. Through the ongoing creation of the National Beyond visual line of sight Experimentation Corridor (NBEC), Cranfield University is also working with partners Blue Bear Systems Research, Thales and Vodafone to provide a safe, managed environment for UAV experimentation, ultimately working towards unsegregated operation with manned aircraft in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace.
Co-investigators for the Skyfarer project include Altitude Angel, with Apian, ERS Medical, Avy and FlyPulse supporting.
Other partners for the hospital procedures project are Blue Bear Systems Research, The Drone Office, Herotech8 and Kings College London, who will work closely with Milton Keynes, Bedford and Luton & Dunstable hospitals.
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