Inter hospital transport by drone becomes reality
BRUSSELS/ANTWERP-Helicus Aero Iniave (HAI) is pung in place a system that is able to transport medical parcels by drones between hospitals and their laboratories/pharmacies. The project, named MEDRONA, was selected for funding by the federal government. Inter hospital test flights will take place during the second part of 2019 in Antwerp urban airspace.
The aim of MEDRONA is to demonstrate a system that is able to transport medical parcels (e.g. human ssue, blood & urine samples and pharmacy preparaons) in a reliable, ecological and efficient way. The project is designed to structurally expand today's modal mix, taking traffic away from congested roads and using the underulized capacity in the Very Low Level (VLL) airspace (between ground and 150 meters high). Five companies have joined forces in this project: Belgocontrol, SABCA, Unifly, NSX and Helicus. Each company will focus on a specific part of the overall soluon.
"Rather than seng up simple flights between hospitals, the project will offer sustainable soluons that are fully compliant with both air traffic management and healthcare regulaons. This service will enable hospitals to maintain high-quality services to their paents in mes of congested road transport", explains Mikael Shamim, Managing Director of Helicus and Coordinator of the Helicus Aero Iniave.
Smart Mobility Belgium
The project was selected out of 136 candidate projects within the frame of Smart Mobility Belgium (SMB). SMB is a joint iniave of the Belgian federal minsters of Transport and Communicaon for projects aiming at smart and innovave mobility applicaons. It has a budget of 4M€.
SMB will provide support to MEDRONA which constutes the second phase of the Helicus Aero Iniave (HAI). This phase aims to build safety assessments for specific inter hospital flight corridors. A series of test flights in 2019 should allow to obtain the regulatory approval for the future exploitaon of the medical drone transport system in Antwerp.
"We are very proud to be part of one of the selected projects. It underlines the interest that is expressed at different government levels and the growing belief that drones can bring a posive impact to society at large and its mobility challenges in parcular," says Hendrik-Jan Van Der Gucht, Manager Innovaon at Belgocontrol, the Belgian Air Navigaon Service Provider (ANSP).
About the partners:
Belgocontrolis an autonomous public company, created in October 1998, with the mission to guarantee the safety of air navigaon in the airspace for which Belgium is responsible. Its zone of acvies extends from ground level (at Brussels Airport and the airports of Antwerp, Charleroi, Kortrijk, Liege and Ostend) to flight level 245 (7,5 km high) above Belgium and from flight levels 145 to 245 for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Uniflyis the leading provider of Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) soſtware. Today, Unifly's technology is in use on a naonal level by four leading air navigaon service providers (ANSPs), as well as in several regional projects throughout the world. Unifly also closely collaborates with major internaonal corporaons and ANSPs in 10 European UTM research projects, as well as with the FAA and with state authories in the UAS Integraon Pilot Program (IPP).
SABCAis a key Belgian aerospace company founded in 1920. It has built an extensive and varied know-how based on its 95+ years of experience in designing, building, maintaining, and upgrading large and complex elements for aircraſt and space launchers. It's customers and partners are key players in the global aerospace market. SABCA offers a complete range of services to Unmanned Aviaon Vehicle (UAV) market by transferring proven experse in aircraſt system integraon, tesng, qualificaon and cerficaon to UAV systems. SABCA will design & build the UAV plaorm for MEDRONA that will be used throughout the Helicus Aero Iniave.
NSXdesigns and engineers informaon systems, according to Normalized Systems theory, so they exhibit proven evolvability. NSX has both developed the theory and proven in pracce the value of normalized systems by effecvely creang systems that are able to scale efficiently and run large data volumes. This technology is used to develop the IT backbone of the Helicus Aero Iniave, which will be key to allow scaling when addional hospitals are added into the command & control system.
Helicusis a start-up company that aims to operate long term qualitave, ecological and affordable soluons for medical transport. Helicus offers a common framework to coordinate and implement the competences of interested partners under the "Helicus Aero Iniave (HAI)". HAI effecvely forms an eco-system of complementary companies to jointly & efficiently develop unmanned aerial soluons for the healthcare sector. Phase one is the Proof of Concept (ending in a demonstraon flight above the city of Antwerp). Phase two (MEDRONA accepted under SMB) is an extended urban tesng program as part of an operaonal Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) system. Phase Three will offer services to specific pilot hospitals.
Contact informaon: Steven Wille - Head of SABCA UAS Business Unit e-mail:steven.wille@sabca.be
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SABCA - Société Anonyme Belge de Constructions Aéronautiques published this content on 04 October 2018 and is solely responsible for the information contained herein. Distributed by Public, unedited and unaltered, on 04 October 2018 16:12:05 UTC