Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for Blood Delivery

📖 The Scoop

Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are proliferating in both commercial and military markets. Blood makes for an interesting UAV delivery case study because blood products (whole blood, red blood cells, and platelets) have a finite shelf life and unique constraints regarding how they must be transported and stored. The medical community's blood supply chain can potentially benefit from a pairing with a delivery platform that allows for on-demand capability and greater flexibility. In this report, the authors assess the utility of autonomous UAVs-specifically, small fixed-wing UAVs-for two distinct military missions of interest to the Joint Staff: logistical resupply of blood units to medical treatment facilities and emergency delivery of whole blood to traumatically injured personnel at forward-operating locations in medical situations where time is critical. The authors define a notional blood delivery mission space in terms of distances, payloads, and response times and then detail the use of a modeling software tool they developed to optimize the design of a fleet of blood delivery UAVs. Their assessment tool and specific optimization formulation (geometric programming) reveal the many supply chain issues of importance and relevance to the Joint medical community and advance the understanding of the requirements, capabilities, and cost drivers of small UAV delivery systems.

Genre: History / Military / Aviation & Space (fancy, right?)