Every second counts
In Germany, 75,000 patients experience sudden cardiac arrest every year – and only 11 % survive. When an emergency occurs, every second counts! Whether the patient survives is directly related to the ambulance‘s response time and the appliance of a defibrillation. On average, this takes approximately 9 minutes. Too long! By shortening the time to 4 minutes, the survival rate can be tripled.
Defibrillator drone to save lives
An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) can shorten the time span in a life-saving way since it is able to transport the defibrillator to the patient per linear distance. The aim of the project is to test the feasibility of the use case through simulated test missions under realistic conditions. Our final prototype will be able to reach patients within a 6 km radius in 5 minutes. The flight is controlled beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) via a pilot control centre. At the scene of emergency, the defibrillator will be lowered with a winch under remote video supervision and can then be applied by first-aiders.
Who can operate the defibrillator?
In principle, the operation of a defibrillator is easy even for untrained persons. However, if there is only one first-aider with the patient, he or she should not interrupt the cardiac massage according to the resuscitation guidelines. Nevertheless, in order to ensure defibrillation before the ambulance arrives, the rescue chain uses a smartphone-based alerting system. A person with medical background is alerted via an app when he or she is near an emergency scene. As a result, the person arrives already after 4-5 minutes and can pick up and apply the defibrillator dropped by the UAV. The shock delivery succeeds decisively earlier!
The first eVTOL defibrillator transport in Germany!
The implementation of a fixed-wing VTOL for this usecase enables a higher range and speed compared to multicopters. This means that each UAV can help a larger number of people.
Certified
Since the UAV will serve populated areas, flight safety plays a fundamental role. In order to obtain an authorization for our test operations, we follow the guidelines by EASA that were established in 2021, as well as the SORA framework.
Fail-Safe
A redundant hover propulsion system will act alongside an in-house developed fail-safe based flight controller and artificial intelligence support is intended to prevent a crash in human proximity.
Tested
All safety systems are subject to numerous tests using a diverse simulation environment to detect and eliminate errors even before initial flight testing. Should an emergency still occur, an intervention of the integrated parachute system is deployed to minimize the potential consequences of a crash.
2O21
Q1
Completion of requirements analysis
Q2
Development of Prototype 1
Q3
Concept Presentation
Development of Prototype 2
Q4
Use case testing in controlled environment
Rollout
2O22
Q1
Application for operating license according to EASA guidelines (SORA)
Q2
Final tests of the flight controller
Q3
Simulated test operations in populated environment
Q4
Publication of the results
Become a partner
If you are interested in supporting our initiative – feel free to contact us!
Clarissa Anjani
Authorization
Business Development
Funding
Johannes Werner
Business Lead
