Flying Car Could Become Israel’s Robotic Ambulance
“An Israeli consortium is
developing what may become the world’s first unpiloted system for
resupplying, evacuating, and even treating battlefield casualties in
high-threat areas,” writes Defense News‘ Barbara Opall-Rome. Let’s just hope the technology is a little slicker than the concept art (right).
Israel’s Fisher Institute for
Air and Space Strategic Studies is working with local technology firms to build “MedUAV,” a combination of ducted-fan flying drone and robotic ambulance. The Institute is hoping — hoping — to start test flights in 24 months. Eventually, the idea is to carry up to four passengers at speeds of 150 knots and heights of up to 10,000 feet.
(If the whole thing looks retro-futuro familiar, that’s because Urban Aeronautics, makers of this concept drone, is one of the company’s behind the robo-medevac.)
Six of the 119 soldiers killed in Israel’s
33-day war with Hezbollah might have survived, if the Israeli Defense Forces “had been able to
evacuate casualties within the so-called ‘golden hour,’ when their
chances for recovery were relatively high. But because the IDF could
not thoroughly cleanse urban areas of hidden terrorists and concealed
rocket-launching squads, the Israel Air Force often could not dispatch
medical evacuation helicopters upon demand,” Opall-Rome notes.
The Fisher Institute’s concept is to put together a relatively simple UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] at first — and then follow with something that can also drive around a battlefield, picking up the wounded. The flying car becomes a robotic ambulance, in other words.
Program officials here said fast track MedUAVs will be operated in multiple modes, depending on the danger.
“The problem is that if you have one critically injured patient in the middle of a village, you have to risk
the lives of at least three others to go in and evacuate,” [the Institute’s Eran] Schenker said.
Historically, according to the IDF medical specialist, some 40 percent
of paramedics and first responders are injured or killed en route to
saving patients.To drive down those statistics, the MedUAV will operate in conventional modes with pilot, medic and assisting crew member to the outer extent of the designated secure zone. The aircraft will
then land, discharge all but a single medic, and fly the rest of the
way to a forward evacuation point by remote control…The autonomous landing, uploading of the
patient and takeoff will take no more than 45 seconds, according to
Fisher Institute officials. In very dangerous environments, the
fast-tracked MedUAV could be operated completely by remote control,
with a doctor sitting at a faraway command trailer alongside the remote
vehicle operator. While the pilot operates the air vehicle, the doctor
will use sensors and video and voice communications to interact with
the patient.