TECHNOLOGY in the community indicated that it would be helpful if some medicine, or maggots in this particular example, were transported, they would communicate this to the hospital in Broome, who would then load up the drone. It would then fly autonomously, and by that I mean it would have a preplanned flight path, so it would take off, fly across, and then land automatically with no intervention necessary other than from the controller at the Broome airport end.
TECHNOLOGY in the community indicated that it would be helpful if some medicine, or maggots in this particular example, were transported, they would communicate this to the hospital in Broome, who would then load up the drone. It would then fly autonomously, and by that I mean it would have a preplanned flight path, so it would take off, fly across, and then land automatically with no intervention necessary other than from the controller at the Broome airport end.
Clearly, such activity would have to be cleared with the air traffic control authorities, but that is not perceived to be a difficulty, particularly if one chooses a flight path that doesn’ t interfere with that of regular aircraft. So it would land vertically – and it takes off vertically – and need a diameter of about five metres to be clear of people.
The way this would typically operate is that somebody would be at the landing zone near the community where support is needed, and this could be anybody, really, just to make sure that the landing area is clear of any obstruction and clear of people, any passing kangaroos, or whatever it might be. Then you would communicate back to the operating authority to say that the place was clear to land. It would land, shut down, and then the payload could be removed.
Once the payload’ s been removed and the area is clear again, the operating authority back at Broome could launch the drone, and it would return back to base. So that’ s the general operation here. Clearly, we would envisage nurses or medical staff getting involved, because of the material that’ s being transported. We’ ve got to make sure it’ s being transported in a safe and secure way on the ground, so it’ s safe to use on patients.
You conducted interviews with manufacturers, operators and people involved in the transportation of medical goods using these types of drones. Based on those interviews, how feasible is it to use long-endurance drones in this context? Like you said, we talked to people throughout this whole supply chain; for example, drone operators, people involved in terms of making sure that the technology aligns with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority( CASA) regulations, and also with medical staff associated with a community in Western Australia.
We can look at these points in three different dimensions. First, the technology side. The simple response from most people we spoke to who had knowledge of this was that this is a viable technology that works. There aren’ t any technological challenges here. Having said that, people are working on systems to make the drones even safer by using a‘ sense and avoid’ technology.
In the example we looked at, the flight path that it would take is a straight line over the sea, well clear of regular airline passage. So again, there was not perceived to be any drama.
Obviously, you would assess and manage risks, like making sure the drone is painted in bright colours, and putting a lock on the receptacle in which the medicines, or maggots in this case, are being carried, so that if it did come down in the wrong place, people couldn’ t get hold of the medicine and use it inappropriately. So, from the technological point of view, there is no real problem.
Turning to the processes, again, the advice we received was yes, we would have to get specific approval from CASA, but this was not perceived to be a major difficulty. We would have to put up a case, explain the operation, etc, but the general advice was that this should be achievable subject to the right examples and explanation being put out there.
I guess the real question is the acceptability to people, particularly given that drones have a background as a warlike weapon, and therefore, we’ ve got to transfer that from the warlike context to a peacetime context here, and a supportive context. This is probably the area where there’ s the most sensitivity, but again, those working in this particular community feel that if we work with the community, and in particular elders within the community, this could be a valuable and sensible way to proceed.
What would it take to see long-endurance drone technology used as part of common practice? The simple answer is that while our theoretical research – and I mean theoretical but advised by a large number of stakeholders – was that this is entirely feasible.
We need to have a pilot trial. We need to find a relatively benign location, such as the one which we used in our example, where generally speaking, people are supportive of this, but give it a go and try and iron out any technical issues – so, working with the air traffic control authorities, working with the drone flyers, and working with the community. Then based on that, in any subsequent amendment to the operating procedures, we would feel confident that this could be used in support of communities, such remote communities throughout Australia.
Clearly, depending on the exact location, there will be greater challenges. It depends, for example, on the location of the base hospital you’ re supporting it from. If that is in a large, built-up area, simplistically a community on the periphery of Melbourne, then the challenges will be different from those on the periphery of a relatively small town such as Broome.
The principle of what we’ re trying to achieve here is entirely doable once we have a pilot trial and demonstrated that it works to everybody’ s satisfaction.
How likely is adoption from a cost perspective? Well, that’ s obviously the challenge. The actual capital cost of the drone that we looked at is commercially sensitive, but a broadly similar one on the market has been quoted to cost $ 100,000. Clearly, one has to recognise that this is not cheap, but on the other hand, one has to compare that with, for example, the standard aircraft used by the Royal Flying Doctor Service, the Hawker XP, which I understand is about $ 2.3 million. So, clearly, $ 100,000 is rather cheaper if one can treat the patient by means of the fast provision of medicines.
The alternative, of course, is to take those medicines to the patient or the patient to the medicines. Clearly, depending on the location and the particular environmental conditions, and by that I’ m talking about things like the wet season and so on, that may not be feasible, and therefore you may have to revert to the RFDS. Again, if we’ re in the middle of a wet season, in the middle of some particularly bad weather event, the RFDS may not be able to access the location, whereas the drone almost certainly would. Drones similar to the one we’ re talking about have flown through the centre of cyclones for about six hours and provided the data through the American air nautical organisation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. So that side is okay.
In terms of the running cost, a similar drone from Aerison, a company based in Melbourne, flew for 26 hours from the US to Ireland, so it flew across the Atlantic for 26 hours without refuelling, and it consumed about seven litres of fuel. The fuel consumption is minimal compared to larger aircraft. So from the running-cost side, clearly there’ s huge benefit.
Obviously, the issue would be the capsule cost, so part of one’ s rollout would be to decide a location where you might have a number of communities served by one drone.
In terms of staff costs, they’ re broadly going to be similar. The flight crew for an aircraft and the engineers supporting an aircraft, in numerical terms, would be similar to those supporting the drone. So that’ s about like for like. ■
In addition to professor Peter Tatham, the wider research team included doctoral student Frank Stadler, flying officer Abigail Murray and professor Ramon Shaban from Griffith University’ s School of Nursing and Midwifery. nursingreview. com. au | 25