MALAWI DRONES:
VIRGINIA TECH UNMANNED
AIRCRAFT SETS RECORDS
IN MALAWI
12
Flights by a fully autonomous aircraft
designed in mechanical engineering’s
Unmanned Systems Lab set several
records in Malawi in 2017, including
the longest cross-country unmanned
aircraft flight, the first flight of an
aircraft fabricated by Malawians, and
the first delivery of a payload from a
health clinic. The flights were part of
tests conducted at the UNICEF drone
testing corridor in Kasungu, Malawi.
Designed to carry small packages
for medical supplies and diagnostics,
the aircraft called EcoSoar, flew a 19
kilometer fully-autonomous mission
from the Gogode Health Clinic to the
Kasungu Airport carrying a simulated
package of medical supplies.
More significant than the flight,
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
Standridge in aerospace engineering
and James Donnelly of mechanical
engineering, and Kevin Kochersberger,
an associate professor in mechanical
engineering.
Thirteen Malawian students built five
EcoSoar aircraft as part of a two-day
fabrication workshop before 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 such materials as foamcore
poster board and 3-D printed parts.
“I envision entrepreneurs in Malawi
establishing businesses around the use
of this aircraft – building, operating,
and maintaining EcoSoar for both
medical deliveries and environmental
assessment activities.”
In addition to a payload capacity of
130 grams (4.5 ounces), the aircraft
can be fitted with an eight-megapix-
el camera to collect images of the
ground environment, which can then
be reconstructed for environmental
monitoring.