Danish 'Health Drone' Makes Maiden Voyage to Deliver Blood Samples
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According to Falck, the company that operates the health drone, the scheme may easily be extended to other routes as well. Furthermore, it envisaged manned drone flights to deliver health personnel “within three to five years”.
A so-called “health drone” has made its maiden voyage in Denmark, delivering blood samples and medicine between Svendborg on the island of Funen and the island of Ærø, Danish Radio reported.
The 50-kilometre 40-minute flight was guided from a control room in Copenhagen.
The battery-powered health drone has a range of 100 kilometres and a payload of 2.5 kilograms. With a wing span of 2.8 metres, it can reach an altitude of 80 metres. It is equipped with a parachute in case of lost communication or an accident.
Before the advent of health drones, blood samples taken on Ærø had to be driven by car and sailed by ferry to the laboratory on the Funen archipelago, which had its logistical limitations.
Before the advent of health drones, blood samples taken on Ærø had to be driven by car and sailed by ferry to the laboratory on the Funen archipelago, which had its logistical limitations.
“So far it is still a test flight, but where we think the drones can make a difference in the future, it is that we can fly things back and forth between Ærø and Funen at a time when ferries don'tnormally sail”, Bjarne Dahler-Eriksen, medical director at Odense University Hospital, told Danish Radio.
According to him, the drone route may be also used for the timely delivery of valuable equipment.
He explains that it is not only blood samples that must be flown from Ærø to a laboratory on Funen. It can also be medicine, equipment or special remedies in case of an accident that gets flown one way or another.
According to Dahler-Eriksen expects the scheme to be expanded in the long term, so that inhabitants of other islands or outlying areas may benefit from health drones.
Kjeld Jensen, associate professor at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) Drone Centre and health drone project manager, called the flight “a big step in the direction of scaling up drones”, as the flight didn't take place in a closed airspace, but together with the rest of the air traffic.
Nicolai Søndergaard Laugesen, development director at Falck, one of the companies behind the health drone, said its ability to fly in the open air means that it can easily be extended to other routes. At the same time, he envisaged new traffic rules in the future, when drones will be integrated with helicopters and others.
Nicolai Søndergaard Laugesen, development director at Falck, one of the companies behind the health drone, said its ability to fly in the open air means that it can easily be extended to other routes. At the same time, he envisaged new traffic rules in the future, when drones will be integrated with helicopters and others.
“If we look a little further ahead, it is not an awfully long time for manned drones to arrive which will fly paramedics or doctors to a site of injury”, Søndergaard Laugesen mused. According to him, manned drones may become reality “within three to five years”.
