Momentum - The Magazine for Virginia Tech Mechanical Engineering Vol. 2 No. 4 Winter 2017 | Page 8

Engineers set drone records in Malawi
as part of UNICEF corridor trials
Drone delivery has moved one step closer to
reality in sub-Saharan Africa after a team from
Virginia Tech conducted tests at the UNICEF
drone testing corridor in Kasungu, Malawi with a
fully autonomous aircraft designed in mechani-
cal engineering’s Unmanned Systems Lab.
The flights set several records in Malawi,
including the longest cross country unmanned
aircraft flight; the first flight of an aircraft
fabricated by Malawians; and the first delivery of
More significant than the flight, however,
was the fact the aircraft were built by a team of
Malawian students from the Malawi University
of Science and Technology (MUST) under the
supervision of graduate students Zack Stan-
dridge of aerospace and ocean engineering and
James Donnelly of mechanical engineering, and
Kevin Kochersberger, an associate professor in
mechanical engineering.
Thirteen students from across Malawi built five
EcoSoar aircraft as part of a two-day fabrication
workshop. After a day of flight testing, hun-
dreds of villagers came to the airfield to wit-
ness the historic beyond-line-of-sight delivery
flight. The aircraft carried a simulated package
of dried blood spot samples to the Kasungu
Airport.
“EcoSoar was designed with low-resource
environments in mind,” said Kochersberger of
the $350 aircraft made from materials such as
foamcore poster board, and 3-D printed parts.
“I envision entrepreneurs in Malawi establish-
ing businesses around the use of this aircraft
– building, operating and maintaining EcoSoar
for both medical deliveries and environmental
assessment activities.”
In addition to payload capacity of 130 grams
(4.5 ounces), the aircraft can be fitted with an
eight-megapixel camera to collect images of the
ground environment which can then be recon-
structed for environmental monitoring.
a payload from a health clinic.
Designed to carry small packages for medical
supply and diagnostics, EcoSoar achieved a
first-flight milestone Nov. 9 when it flew a 19
km fully-autonomous mission from the Gogode
Health Clinic to the Kasungu Airport carrying a
simulated package of medical supplies.
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WINTER'17

Donnelly launched the aircraft from the
Gogode Health Clinic and Standridge stood by
to recover the plane at the Kasungu Airport.
Standridge was rewarded by the sound of the
drone 14 minutes after takeoff when it was one
kilometer from its destination.
“It is extremely rewarding to see my design
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